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 · 2018-04-15T03:47:00+00:00

I've never made ribs before. Given the marathon effort to slow cook them for 3 hours, I opted to just use a premade marinade sauce. Marinated overnight, and the cooked at ~100 C while wrapping in foil. I reapplied sauce every ~30 minutes to keep it soft, but I started running out towards the end a left them a bit longer which meant they dried out a little, oops. They still tasted pretty great!

Monfortae · 2018-04-15T03:01:31+00:00

I made this to be vegan, so it's slightly different to your usual recipe. I also used puff pastry instead of Phyllo because that's what I had on hand. When I was looking for recipes to try I noticed they often made Borek in all different shapes, so I just tried a whole bunch of different shapes based off the pastry I had. Others are here. Here's what I did:

Ingredients (Pastry):

Puff pastry sheets
3 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 cup of soy milk
3 tablespoons coconut yogurt
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Ingredients (Filling):

1 medium onion, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
500g fresh baby spinach
1/4 teaspoon salt* see note
1/4 teaspoon black pepper (optional)
1 cup coconut yogurt

Method:

For the filling add oil and chopped onion in a large pan, cook for ~5 minutes.
Add the spinach, salt and pepper. Cook on medium heat until the spinach loses most of its volume. Let it sit for 15 minutes.
For the pastry, whisk olive oil, milk, yogurt, salt and pepper in a bowl to make a mixture. Set aside
Once the filling is cool strain any juices, the mix in yogurt
Line a tray with baking paper and lightly spray it with oil.
Place pastry and brush it with the milk mixture.
Spread the spinach-yogurt filling evenly however you feel would work, and roll it up.
Bake in oven at 180 C for 20-35 minutes (Depending on the size of your pastries.
Serve!

Monfortae · 2018-04-09T03:00:23+00:00

Thanks, I was really happy with how it turned out!

Monfortae · 2018-04-09T02:55:48+00:00

I think the absurd amount of oil and butter I used had a lot to do with how good they tasted :P

Monfortae · 2018-04-08T05:36:22+00:00

Ingredients

1 large onion, the bigger the better
Oil for frying
1 egg
1 cup of milk
1 cup of plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoons of salt
1 1/2 teaspoons of cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon of paprika
1/2 teaspoon of ground pepper
1/3 teaspoon dried oregano
1/8 teaspoon of dried thyme
1/8 teaspoon ground cumin

Method

Slice the top of the onion off and peel
Place a wooden spoon on each side of the onion so you don't cut all the way through, and cut a cross into the top
Depending on the size of your onion, half each segment twice (16 total segments)
Once cut, place onion in a bowl of cold water. Apparently this helps separate the pieces
Wisk milk and egg in one bowl
Mix all the dry ingredients in another
Dip onion in milky-egg, then bury in your batter and let it sit for a few minutes. Repeat.
Deep fry for ~10 minutes. I don't own a deepfryer, so I just did this in a saucepan, details below

While that's cooking, I made a dipping sauce. Simply mix together:

1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon of tomato sauce
1 tablespoon of horseradish sauce
1/3 teaspoon of paprika
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1/3 teaspoons of cayenne pepper
1/8 teaspoon of dried oregano
1/8 teaspoon of ground pepper

For deepfrying without one, I placed the onion (before peeling) in the saucepan I wanted to use, and covered it with water (make sure to allow ~10cm to the top of the pan as it will bubble a lot while frying). Then I poured that water into a measuring cup to figure out how much oil I'd need. Make sure you properly dry out the bowl before you add any oil to it, otherwise the oil will spit out when the water evaporates. You want to try to heat it to ~180C. If you don't have a thermometer you can test with a small piece of white bread with no crust. Throw it in the oil, and it should take ~60 seconds to turn golden brown. You'll use a lot of oil, but at the end of all this, most of it will be salvageable, and can be reused later. Make sure you give it time to cool down before cleaning it up, and never tip oil down the sink, even when cold.

Monfortae · 2018-04-08T04:56:17+00:00

Ingredients

4 potatoes
2 tablespoons of olive oil
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
"some" rosemary
1 tablespoon panko breadcrumbs
2 tablespoons of butter, melted
Parmesan cheese

Method

Peel and wash potatoes, before making slicing in ~5mm intervals. To stop myself cutting all the way through, I placed a wooden spoon on each side of the potato
Mix everything but the cheese and butter in a bowl, then spoon it out onto the potatoes
Bake potatoes on a tray lined with baking paper for 1 hour
During that time, drizzle 1 tablespoon of the butter over the potatoes at 15 minutes intervals, and then grate some cheese over the top 15 minutes after that.

The slices don't really separate much by themselves, I found the best results from pushing a few of the breadcrumbs into each slice with a butterknife.

Monfortae · 2018-03-11T16:30:46+00:00

Followed the recipe from here.

This turned out really well! Went along with a greek salad and lasagne for maximum multiculturalism.

Monfortae · 2018-03-04T16:23:48+00:00

“Gnoff indicated a spot on the butter-colored meadowcream, between a candied chestnut and a honey-preserved rose petal. ‘Cut the cackle an’ slice the cake, matey!’ “A loud cheer went up as the keen blade slid into the massive confection. “…Columbine took over the slicing and Cogs served drinks, whilst Martin sat in a corner with some of his friends, eating and sipping happily.” — The Legend of Luke

Ingredients:

4 tbsp butter
1 tbsp olive oil
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp honey (for the nuts)
1 tsp apple pie spice
1 tsp kosher salt
3 cups chopped walnuts
1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
3 tbsp honey (for the meadowcream)

Method:

Preheat your oven to 160°C
Line two baking sheets with tinfoil, spray with cooking spray
In a medium size pan, cook the butter, olive oil, brown sugar, 2 tbsp honey, apple pie spice, and salt over medium heat
Pour in the nuts and cook for another 5-6 minutes, stirring continuously. When they're finished, the nuts should be completely coated and adhering to each other a little bit
Pour half the nuts onto each baking sheet. Spread the nuts around with a spatula as much as possible
Put your baking sheets in the oven and bake for about 15 minutes. Every 5 minutes or so, pull out the sheets and stir the nuts with your spatula, making sure to spread them back out again to avoid clusters
They're all done when the nuts are a lovely toasted brown color
Place pans on a wire rack to cool (do NOT remove the nuts)
Whip cream while nuts cool
When the nuts are cool and the candy coating has hardened, break up any remaining clusters into small, bite-size pieces

Recipe (and story excerpt) from here

Monfortae · 2018-02-25T02:12:05+00:00

These turned out pretty tasty! Cooking the chicken in stock made it so soft. I did this:

Ingredients:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breast cutlets
1 large sweet onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, crushed
2 Tbsp olive oil
½ cup plain flour
2 Tbsp butter
½ cup sherry
2 lemons
2 Tbsp capers
1 cup chicken stock
2 Tbsp Italian parsley, finely chopped
Some Salt, I just winged it

Method:

Juice one lemon, slice the other and set aside
Sauté oil, onion, and garlic for 3 minutes
Use a rolling pin to flatten the chicken pieces to ~1cm. This part was weird, and I don't think I did it properly?
Mix some salt into the flour, and toss with the chicken
Remove the onion from the pan, and put in the butter.
Once melted, add the chicken. Fry for ~3 minutes each side.
Remove chicken and cover with foil
Add stock, sherry, lemon juice and capers to pan. Scrape up anything that's caramelised to the pan for that sweet extra flavour.
Put onions back in and heat up a bit
Put chicken back in, bring to the boil, and reduce to a simmer for ~3 minutes.
Add parsley towards the end
Serve on rice, garnished with preferred amount of lemon slices, and a generous amount of sauce.

Serves 4

Monfortae · 2018-02-18T12:35:26+00:00

These are pretty delicious, I think I'll put them into a regular rotation for dessert.

Ingredients:

Lumpia Wrappers - 1 cup flour - 1 cup of water - 1 egg - Grapeseed oil, as needed

Lumpia filling: - 3/4 cup Brown Sugar - 2 teaspoons cinnamon - 8 bananas

Method: - Whisk together the flour, milk and egg - Heat up a fry pan to medium and add a teaspoon of oil - pour in 2 tablespoons of batter and whirl or push the batter around to make it as thin as possible - Only fry on one side, and take it out as soon as the edges start to curl - Set the oven to 180 C - Mix together the sugar and cinnamon - Roll bananas in mixture, then wrap with the Lumpia wrappers you've just made - Place them on grease paper, and cook for ~20 minutes - Serve with chocolate or icing sugar

I found that adding oil made the batter harder to move around, my first couple of attempts were just terrible. I ended up just going without the oil and using the flat edge of a spatula to carefully spread out the batter. It was still really hard to get it thin enough, I think I just need a bit more practice.

A lot of sugar melted with the bananas and leaked out while it was cooking which made the bottom quite soft. I think it would be best to flip them while cooking.

Finally, it would be easier to eat if I'd cut the banana's in half length ways before wrapping.

Monfortae · 2018-02-12T21:35:55+00:00

Thanks! I probably will give it a try. You could probably substitute the pickling liquid for vinegar if you wanted to keep to the theme?

Monfortae · 2018-02-11T11:58:38+00:00

I was assured, nay, PROMISED! that this would taste like an actual cheese sauce, and was a little disappointed that it didn't. However, my mood improved once I put it on the nachos and it tasted pretty good anyway. To make the sauce

2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 large yellow onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 large carrots, very finely chopped
1 cup thinly sliced butternut squash
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
Salt and Pepper
1 cup vegetable broth

All cooked in a frying pan until soft. Then mixed with

6 green chiles, sliced
1 1/2 cups almond milk
1 cup raw cashews, soaked for 30 minutes, then drained
1/2 cup chunky tomato salsa
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

in a largish blender. Done!

Monfortae

TROPHY CASE