Category Archives: Main Courses

Venetian Spiced Roast Chicken & Apples

21 Tuesday Jan 2025

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This recipe was inspired by a description of Venice as a historical trading port and how its cuisine has been influence by the goods and people passing through it throughout the ages. Arab traders brought a taste for fruit cooked with meat and Marco Polo introduced eastern spices not just to Venice, but from there into Western Europe. I thought to combine these two influences to spice up a Sunday roast.

For 4 portions

medium sized free range chicken cut into about 12 pieces

1 teaspoon black peppercorns

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

3 garlic cloves

2 cloves

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

good pinch of saffron

zest and juice of half a lemon and half an orange

2 tart eating apples

Using a pestle and mortar grind the salt, peppercorns and cloves together to a powder

Add the ground cinnamon and nutmeg, mix well.

Chop the garlic roughly and add to the spices, crush to a paste, then add the saffron, orange and lemon zest and juice.

Mix well to a paste and add the the chicken portions mixing well to ensure that the chicken is well covered with the marinade.

Leave for an hour to let flavours to enter and tenderise the chicken.

Roast the chicken pieces in a hot oven 180 fan or 200C for twenty minutes.

Cut the apples into wedges and remove the cores.

Take the chicken out of the oven and turn each piece, add the apple pieces and return to the oven for another twenty minutes.

If you want to roast potatoes with the chicken, have them peeled, cut into the size you like and seasoned. Twenty minutes before the chicken needs to go in the oven start roasting the potatoes in olive oil. After the twenty minutes, take the tray out of the oven and turn the potatoes over. Add the chicken and proceed as above

Enjoy!

Salmon Trout Parcels

20 Monday Jan 2025

Posted by in Fish, Food for One, Main Courses, Techniques

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Salmón trout fillets steamed on a bed of black rice and flavoured with fennel, leeks, garlic and fresh red chillis. This is a great dinner party dish as everything is prepared in advance and each portion individually parcelled up in tin foil ready to be baked in the oven. I suppose this is more of an assemblage than a recipe. Of course it’s a method of cooking that allows for variations of flavourings, I’ve used ginger, lemongrass and chilli, with coconut milk as the sauce and rice noodles as the bed to lay the fish on. I’ll write that style out in more detail at the end of this basic recipe.

So you need

fillets of salmon trout

cooked rice, I used black rice which apart from being tastier than white, was a great colour contrast to the trout

tender vegetables that will cook in 15 minutes, for example broccoli florets, mange toute peas, spinach, asparagus. I used the first two for this recipe.

well flavoured fish stock, 3 tablespoons per serving

finely chopped fresh red chilli

fennel fronds

finely sliced leek

finely chopped spring onion

finely chopped parsley

olive oil

Cut a large oblong piece of aluminium foil for each serving and oil the inside.

Place on one half of the oblong a portion of rice, on this a fillet of trout and the vegetables to each side of the fillet, then the seasonings, a sprig of fennel, pinch of chopped parsley, the sliced leek and chilli, and finally the spring onion

Spoon over 3-4 tablespoons of the fish stock and season everything well with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Fold the aluminium sheet over the fish and seal the sides by neatly folding over the foil twice.

Lay the parcels on a baking sheet and bake at 180C for 20 minutes.

Simply serve each parcel on a plate and let yourself and your guests open them at the table and enjoy firstly the wonderful aromas of the fish and it’s herbs before the delicate taste of the dish.

As I said earlier there are many variations of flavours and ingredients than can be used with this method of cooking.

Any lean fillet or steak of fish can be used, salmon, hake, cod, swordfish.
The base can be a purée of potatoes or other root vegetables, with these being quite moist adjust down the amount of stock or sauce that is spooned over the dish.
Flat rice noodles work very well. I soak them in cold water for 15 minutes, drain them, and then pour over boiling water and leave them 2 minutes before draining again and using them in this dish. I allow 40 grams dry noodles per person.

To follow the oriental them of the rice noodles I flavour the fish with slivers of garlic, ginger, chilli and lemongrass and use coconut milk as the liquid.

Have fun trying your own combinations

Parsnip & Tomato Bake

29 Sunday Dec 2024

Posted by in Main Courses, Starters, Vegetable Dishes, Vegetarian

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Creamy, warming and savoury and a little sweet, this bake is a meal on its own which I used to cook regularly in the British winter before moving to Spain. Here you didn’t see them as they clearly don’t do well in this hot dryness, the odd time you would find them they would be woody and small, great for adding flavour to a dish but not much more.

So I was surprised to spot some plump ones in the supermarket and decided to revisit this recipe from my dim and distant past. Thin sliced of parsnips layered with slices of fresh tomatoes and ricotta style cheese and seasoned with the usual salt and pepper and a touch touch of sweetness, a sprinkling of brown sugar, or for me today some quince jelly as a have jars of it in my store. I know it might sound too much putting sugar with parsnips and tomatoes that are both sweet, but trust me it really adds to the richness of the dish.

For 2 portions

2 large parsnips

3 large tomatoes

ricotta or similar cheese

salt and freshly ground black pepper

brown sugar

olive oil

Grated pecorino or Parmesan

Slice the parsnips and tomatoes into fairly thin rounds.

Using an ovenproof dish start with a layer of parsnips, then scatter over the ricotta cheese, then season with the salt, pepper and sugar, then add a layer of the sliced tomatoes.

Continue layering in this order until the dish is full ending with a layer of parsnips and seasonings.

Brush over with olive oil and cover with tin foil. Bake at 150C for 1 hour 30 minutes. Remove the foil, sprinkle generously with grated pecorino or Parmesan and put back in the oven for another 10 minutes or so until the cheese is a bubbling golden brown.

Enjoy!

Tofu & Mushroom Cakes

25 Sunday Feb 2024

Posted by in Food for One, Main Courses, Snacks and Tapas, Vegan, Vegetable Dishes, Vegetarian

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Creamy on the inside and crispy on the outside, with the mushroom enhanced by the addition of seaweed and oriental flavours, you will love these little cakes as much as I do.

Per portion

130 grams firm tofu

50 grams oyster, or other well flavoured, mushrooms

1 sheet dried nori seaweed

1 cm cube, more or less, fresh ginger

1 clove garlic

fresh chilli

2 teaspoons miso soup base

1 heaped teaspoon cornflour plus extra for coating the cakes

oil for shallow frying

To a mini food processor add the roughly chopped ginger, garlic and chilli, then whizz for a few seconds.

Add the roughly chopped mushrooms and break the nori into the mix. Process to combine. Stop the processor and scrape down the mix from the sides if needed.

Break the tofu into the processor and add the cornflour and miso paste. Process until you have an even smooth paste that sticks together.

Remove the mix and divide into four equal amounts. Put some cornflour onto a plate and form each quarter of the mix into a little flat cake, coating it in cornflour as you do so.

Heat oil in a frying pan and add cakes. Cook on a low heat. The cakes are quite delicate so you only want to turn them once, so let the first side get nicely golden brown and crispy before gently turning them over.

I served them with chilli vinegar and some steamed green vegetable dressed with a little sesame oil and seeds.

Enjoy!

Fusion Fish

24 Saturday Feb 2024

Posted by in Fish, Food for One, Main Courses

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Silvery, slippery, super fresh little fish, and locally caught too, I couldn’t resist. I’d got planned for lunch spicy tofu cakes flavoured with seaweed, mushrooms and ginger, the fish pickled in lime juice with ginger, lemongrass and coriander would complement them nicely. The recipe for the tofu cakes will be in the next post.

Boquerones en Vinagre

Boquerones en vinagre is a traditional dish here in southern Spain, the little fish are pickled/cooked in wine vinegar and then topped with finely chopped garlic and parsley, and dressed with olive oil. The preparation of these I’m reposting here.

For today I’m making the variation mentioned in the original post, where lime juice is used to pickle the fish but adding oriental flavours as a topping. For the first marinade I used half rice vinegar and half lime juice. Then just lime juice as the second marinade which is topped with grated ginger, finely slice lemongrass and green garlic stem, then finely chopped red chilli. It was delicious with the lime giving a gently sweetness.

Enjoy ❤️

A Trio of Roast Vegetables

21 Sunday Jan 2024

Posted by in Food for One, Main Courses, Vegan, Vegetable Dishes, Vegetarian

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This is another one of my not really a recipe recipes. Plain roast carrots, beetroot roasted with orange slices and Pedro Jimenez glaze and roast tomatoes with spring garlic and a crunchy oatmeal topping.

The carrots bought from the local market were so sweet and full of flavour that I had the idea of roasting them to keep all that flavour in and concentrate it a little. I simply coated them with olive oil before roasting.
To accompany the carrots beetroot baked in tin foil. It was cut into chunks, I added chopped garlic and thin orange slices then drizzled with olive oil and Pedro Jimenez glaze which is a concentrated sherry glaze and similar to balsamic glaze, which can be used instead. They were seasoned with sea salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper.
Currently I’m in love with roasted tomatoes, so a small tray of them had to be the third dish. I cut plum tomatoes into chunks, added chopped garlic, drizzled with olive oil and seasoned well with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Then I crushed up one of my oat crackers, this batch had been made with the addition of Panch Poran, a mix of whole spices, cumin, fennel, black mustard, nigella and fenugreek seeds, and sprinkled this on the tomatoes. This worked really well as some of the oats soaked up the juice from the tomatoes and some stayed crispy while the spices added interesting flavours.

The three vegetable dishes went into the oven at the same time at 140C fan/ 165C/325F/ gas mark 3 for 40 minutes.
As is quite often the case, I had about a third of each dish left over, so the following day it made a not so pretty but super tasty tortilla.

Tagliatelle & Cauliflower Sauce

19 Friday Jan 2024

Posted by in Main Courses, Starters, Techniques, Vegan, Vegetable Dishes, Vegetarian

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Some dishes that I eat regularly are so simple that I almost don’t think of them as recipes worth sharing, but these are most likely the easy dishes that you would want to hear about.

I made my own pasta for this dish, which is much easier than you think, have a look at my post, the beginners guide to making fresh pasta. If you are mostly vegan like me you can choose flour that has a high protein content. I used wholemeal Khorasan flour which has 14.5% protein and holds together very well for pasta, spelt flour is very good too. I’ll put at the end of this post the address of a website for buying organic flours and pulses.

Of course using readymade pasta is perfectly fine. This recipe came from friends Gianni and Cinzia who I visited in Matera in the south of Italy and they use dried pasta.

For the sauce this time I used cauliflower as I have beautiful ones ready to eat in my veg patch,

but you can use quite a few other vegetables, broccoli, aubergines, peppers, courgettes all cut into small pieces, fresh peas or broad beans, the basic idea of the recipe remains the same. The vegetable is braised in olive oil with garlic until just cooked but still with a bit of bite, about a third of it is removed and put to one side, the rest has a little stock added and is braised until soft. This is then puréed with a hand blender or mashed to make a sauce, adding seasoning as you go. The removed vegetables are put back in the sauce to warm through and then the sauce is mixed into the pasta.

I love that this sauce is so light and full of flavour. It’s so versatile too as pretty well any vegetable that is in season can be used, herbs and seasoning can be varied. This has got me thinking about the recipe on this blog for Apicius inspired onions, with their flavouring of lovage, honey and herbs, which if two thirds of the onions were puréed would make a great sauce for pasta. I’ll try that next. it’s great that ancient Rome is inspiring today’s cooking!

Almost forgot the address for organic flour, grains and pulses

https://www.rincondelsegura.es/

Spicy Besan Cake

16 Thursday Nov 2023

Posted by in breakfast, Main Courses, Starters, Vegan, Vegetarian

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Continuing with recipes made with chickpea flour or besan, this super tasty cake is not complicated to make. You fry onions, garlic and ginger and then spices to make an intensely flavoured mix, then add chickpea flour and water to make a thick sauce, the cake is then spooned into an oiled dish and left to cool and set. That’s it! It can be eaten cold as pictured below or rolled in desiccated coconut and toasted in the oven.

Makes 2 good portions

1 onion – sliced

2 cloves of garlic – finely chopped

40 grams fresh ginger – cut into tiny batons

2-3 tablespoons olive oil

2 teaspoons panch poran – this is a mix of whole spice seeds in equal amounts – cumin, onion, fenugreek, fennel, and mustard.

seeds from 10 green cardamoms

1/2 teaspoon turmeric

1 fresh green chilli – finely chopped

150 grams chickpea flour

625 ml water

salt and freshly ground black pepper

desiccated coconut and fresh coriander to garnish

Heat the oil in a sauce pan, add the onions, garlic and fresh ginger and cook on a medium heat until soft and slightly golden.

Add the all spices and cook for a further five minutes.

Put in the chickpea flour and slowly mix in the water stirring out any lumps.

Put on a medium heat and stir constantly, the mix will thicken and start to resemble a bechamel.
Keep cooking and stirring until the mixture is very thick and coming away from the sides of the pan.

Let the mixture cool a bit in the pan before turning it out into an oiled square dish. Don’t worry if you haven’t a dish the right size, the mix will be quite solid and can shaped into a bigger dish as below. You want the cake to be about 2 centimetres thick.

Once the cake is cool, it can cut into cubes, garnished with chopped fresh coriander and either enjoyed as it is with a fresh tomato relish, or rolled in desiccated coconut and toasted in the oven.

Farinata

08 Wednesday Nov 2023

Posted by in Food for One, Main Courses, Starters, Vegan, Vegetable Dishes, Vegetarian

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or socca, torta di ceci or cecina is a thin savoury cake made from chickpea flour. This recipe originates in Italy, though due to the high nutritional quality and good flavour of chickpeas and their flour there are many recipes from many counties that use chickpea flour as their main ingredient. I’m going to give you a selection of these recipes in the next few posts.

This is a super easy and simple dish to make. A batter is made with chickpea flour and water, seasoned, poured into a shallow baking dish on top of smoking hot oil, topped with whichever flavouring you fancy and baked for ten minutes.
You can have your flavouring as simple as fresh herbs, rosemary is particularly good, or vegetables that are part cooked. In the photo below I sliced and fried fresh artichokes, the version above is spring onions and garlic with cima di rapa, a type of mustard green that has a lovely sweet and slightly bitter taste.

For 4 servings – cooked in a 36 centimetre diameter shallow pan

150 grams chickpea flour

450 ml water

4 tablespoons olive oil

salt and freshly ground black pepper

prepared topping for the farinata

Preheat the oven to 230c / 210c if a fan oven/ 450f /gas 8

Put the water into a bowl and slowly whisk in the sieved flour. Whisk to eliminate any lumps.

Put in a warm place for an hour or two when it should have bubbles on the surface.

Stir in 2 tablespoons of oil and season with salt and pepper

Put the other 2 tablespoons of oil in the pan and warm the pan in the oven until very hot and nearly smoking.

Take the pan out of the oven and quickly pour in the batter, arrange your topping evenly over the cake and put back in the oven for ten minutes until golden and crispy around the edges.

Serve straight away with a salad or two.

Thai Fish Curry

24 Tuesday Oct 2023

Posted by in Fish, Main Courses

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Poton, which I have used for this recipe, is from the family of cephalopods which include squid, cuttlefish and octopus. I’ve just discovered that there are over 800 types, many more than I expected! It’s an inexpensive fish to buy as it is a bit tougher and so needs longer slower cooking than squid which it resembles, so simmering it slowly in coconut milk flavoured with ginger, garlic and lemongrass suits it very well.


If you want to make this curry with more tender fish or the less tough squid, then make the sauce and simmer very slowly for half an hour before adding your fish, then continue simmering until the fish is just cooked.

For 2 portions

Thumb sized piece of fresh ginger

1 stalk lemongrass

1 large or 2 small cloves of garlic

1 green chilli

1 tablespoon green coriander seeds or a bunch of fresh coriander

500 grams poton or other fish

200 ml coconut milk

1 tablespoon Nam Pla fish sauce

salt and freshly ground black pepper


Slice the tender part of the lemongrass very finely.

Finely chop the garlic, chilli, ginger and coriander leaves. Crush the green coriander seeds if using those.

Put all the above in a wok reserving some coriander leaves for a garnish and add the coconut milk. Slowly bring to a simmer.

Add the sliced a poton, cover and simmer gently until the poton is tender, between 40 minutes and an hour depending on the toughness of the poton.

Season with Nam Pla fish sauce and garnish with more fresh coriander leaves.

Serve with stir fried vegetables and pickled radish.