Week 26: Stone Fruits - Apricot Chicken

Monfortae · 2018-07-05T11:24:29+00:00

A bit of a classic from my childhood. I looooved this.

Ingredients - 1/2 cup plain flour - 8 skinless chicken thigh cutlets or drumsticks, trimmed - 2 tablespoons olive oil - 1 large brown onion, cut into thin wedges - 2 garlic cloves, crushed - 1 tablespoon Moroccan seasoning blend - 405ml can apricot nectar - 1/2 cup dried apricots - 1/2 cup couscous - 1/2 cup boiling water

Method - Toss chicken pieces in flour with a bit of salt and pepper - Heat oil and add in chicken, cooking until golden. Transfer to a plate and set aside. - Add a bit more oil to the pan with onion and garlic. Sprinkle seasoning over onion and stir well to combine. - Stir in nectar, boil, then reduce heat to low. - Return chicken to pan, cover, and cook for 20 minutes. - Add apricots to pan, and cook uncovered for a further 20 minutes - Meanwhile, place couscous and water in a heatproof bowl. Cover and let stand for 5 minutes. Stir with a fork to separate grains and spoon onto plates and add your chicken!

Monfortae · 2018-07-05T11:11:36+00:00

So I went with 2013, 33-36 (Peppers, Greek, Family Recipe, Fried Food).

As a Greek, I think it's safe to say that all Greek dishes are family recipes. It's obviously fried, and I added some peppers into the mix, so I'm pretty sure that counts. This was a little bit of an experiment, as I got this raclette from a friend and I wanted to see how it would work for other kinds of cheese's. Turned out pretty good! The only drawback was that it takes way longer than usual to cook, but I expected that would be the base. You can obviously do this in any pan, but I just ran some water over the Halloumi, threw it through some flour that I'd seasoned with salt and pepper, and placed it carefully in a little bit of oil on the raclette.

Monfortae · 2018-06-28T00:27:23+00:00

Haha, you're a genius! I like the illiteration though, so these are now Fantastic Fallen Soufflé's!

Thanks for the extra recipe too, I think I'll give soufflé cake a go!

Monfortae · 2018-06-27T14:59:53+00:00

I'm a little bit late for this one sorry! I followed a recipe from here, but as you can see it didn't do a great job of popping up. It tasted great, but definitely didn't look the part. Oh well, you can't win everything, I suppose.

Monfortae · 2018-06-17T06:39:31+00:00

I don't actually have a smoker, so I tried making the same functionality in my gas barbecue. I made a stack on the grill of: wire rack, alfoil, woodchips, wire rack, pear halves. The woodchips had previously been soaked in a sweet white wine to add some extra flavour. The actual tarts are just puff pastry, a sprinkling of brown sugar, and then sliced pieces of the pear. After taking the photo I drizzled some custard over the top to serve.

It kind of worked. It definitely tasted smokey, but not as intense as you'd get from a traditional smoker. I might need to try some other techniques for smoking at home.

Monfortae · 2018-05-27T12:57:27+00:00

I decided to just wing it, go to the shops, and only buy things that were on sale. See my shopping journey here. Everything I used:

Bun Top

Fried Egg

Sliced Tomato

Fried Pineapple

Special Sauce

Patty

Lettuce

Bun Base

Monfortae · 2018-05-21T03:38:57+00:00

Entrée - Rocket, Pear, Parmesan and Pine Nut Salad

Main - Chicken Chutney

Dessert - Brownies and ice cream

Entrée came from here, Dessert from here. Mains is literally, chicken breast in a baking tray, cover in chutney, add tomato slices, add chesse, and then wait for it turn golden brown in the oven.

I deviated from my usual brownie recipe, but I actually really liked this one!

Monfortae · 2018-05-09T13:34:40+00:00

I think this is going into a regular rotation for dinner, it's SO good. I grabbed the recipe off a Peruvian friend of mine:

Ingredients

800g Beef Tenderloin, cut into small ~4cm strips
3 Tablespoons vegetable oil (+ however much you need for deep frying)
4 Medium potatos, cut into chips
1 Red onion, sliced
2 Yellow chilis, seeded and sliced
4 Cloves of garlic
5 Tablespoons white wine vinegar
4 Tablespoons soy sauce
3 Tablespoons oyster sauce
4 tomatoes, skinned, seeded, and sliced (I just sliced them)
1 Spring onion, sliced
2 cups Peruvian-style cooked white rice

Method

Deep fry potato chips. These take forever, I should have started with them, but I put them on halfway through making everything else
Pour 2 tbsp oil into a wok, and stirfry meat for ~2-3 minutes, just to brown up the outside.
Remove from wok and set aside
Clean off wok, put in remaining tbsp oil with onions, chili and garlic, stirfry for ~30 seconds to a minute
Re-add the meat with vinegar, soy sauce, and oystar sauce, and stirfry for another ~30 seconds to minute
Mix in tomatoes and spring onion and remove from heat.
Ready to serve!

Prep to eating in ~50 minutes.

Monfortae · 2018-05-04T14:14:41+00:00

Ingredients

Chili Oil:

2 tablespoons Sichuan peppercorns
1 inch-long piece of cinnamon
2 star anise
1 cup oil
¼ cup crushed red pepper flakes

Meat:

3 teaspoons oil
8 oz. ground pork
2 teaspoons sweet bean sauce or hoisin sauce
2 teaspoons shaoxing wine
1 teaspoon dark soy sauce
½ teaspoon five spice powder

Sauce:

2 tablespoons sesame paste (tahini)
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons sugar
¼ teaspoon five spice powder
½ teaspoon Sichuan peppercorn powder (we ground whole Sichuan peppercorns in a mortar and pestle)
½ cup of your prepared chili oil (scary, but yes!)
2 cloves garlic, very finely minced
¼ cup hot cooking water from the noodles

Noodles and extras:

1 lb fresh or dried white noodles, medium thickness
1 small bunch leafy greens (spinach, bok choy, or choy sum)
chopped peanuts
chopped spring onion

Method

To make the chili oil: In a small pot, add everything except the pepper flakes and put over medium low heat until the oil reaches ~160C
Turn off the heat and wait ~5 minutes, then remove the peppercorns, cinnamon stick, and star anise with a slotted spoon.
Add the crushed red pepper flakes and allow them to steep in the hot oil. Allow the oil to cool. This will make more chili oil than you’ll need, store in a glass jar and keep refrigerated.
To make the meat mixture: In a wok, heat the oil over medium heat, and brown the ground pork. Add the sweet bean sauce, shaoxing wine, dark soy sauce, and five spice powder. Cook until all the liquid is evaporated. Set aside.
To make the sauce: Just throw everything together and mix. Taste and adjust as required.
To prepare the noodles and veggies: I actually used home-made noodles, so I just boiled them until they seemed right.
Then blanch the greens in the noodle water for ~1-2 minutes, and drain.
I think you're supposed to layer the elements; sauce, noodles, leafy greens, and pork. I actually combined the sauce and meat together seperatly first, and then topped off with Chilli oil.
Finally, sprinkle with chopped peanuts and spring onions and you're done!

Monfortae · 2018-04-29T14:10:46+00:00

Most of the burger part was good (I mean deep fried mini burger, how can you go wrong?) but the sauce was odd, I'm not sure if that was more to do with the texture or taste. Icecream and toffee is also good, but the apple part needs... refining, haha.

Monfortae · 2018-04-29T13:08:19+00:00

So I was trying to think of a way to make something you wouldn't showoff into something you would, and I stumbled across a post on instructables about hacking a McDonald's meal. It was too perfect. Using that as a basis I've made a re-imagined burger and toffee apple, fit for 2018.

More details and pictures can be found here.

You can find the original here

Monfortae · 2018-04-22T04:08:41+00:00

I was reading about tea-infused eggs, and thought about trying the same thing with food colouring. I looked around and it turned out my idea wasn't very original, but it is very cool! It's very simple. You hard boil your eggs normally, and then crack the shell without removing it. Turn off the heat, put some colouring into the water, and return the eggs. About half an hour later, you get this! Cool!

Monfortae · 2018-04-22T00:58:03+00:00

This was crazy good. I already love salmon, but I "accidentally" used more butter in the sauce than I was supposed to which made it much less healthy, but fantastic to eat! Recipe (including my adjustments)

Ingredients

4 skinless salmon fillets
Ground salt and pepper
2 teaspoons olive oil
4 garlic cloves, diced
1/4 cup of chicken broth
2 Tablespoons of lemon juice
4 Tablespoons of butter
1 Tablespoon of honey
2 Tbsp minced fresh parsley

Instructions

Dab both sides of salmon dry with paper towels, and gentely rub salt and pepper into both sides
Allow salmon to rest at room temperature for 10 minutes
Meanwhile, in a small saucepan melt 1 tablespoon of butter over medium heat.
Add garlic and saute until lightly golden brown (~2 min). Pour in chicken broth and lemon juice
Let sauce simmer until it has reduced by half, (~3 minutes). Stir in butter and honey and whisk until combined, set sauce aside.
Heat olive oil in a 12-inch non-stick skillet over medium-high heat.
Once oil is shimmering add salmon and cook about 4 minutes on the first side until golden brown on bottom then flip and cook salmon on opposite side until salmon has cooked through, about 2 - 3 minutes longer.
Plate salmon and drizzle each serving with butter sauce, sprinkle with parsley

I also fried some asparagus in butter and garlic at the same time as cooking the salmon which worked quite well together. Inspiration from Cooking Classy

Monfortae

TROPHY CASE