A New Dish

Smoggy

Im looking to cook a new dish this weekend and was hoping that someone would post up thier favorite dish that they like to make ,

the rules are :

No Lamb
No Offal ( kidneys etc )
And thats it

Blub2k4

I'm doing a lot with my own fresh tomato sauces these days. I roast tomatoes and garlic in their skins with olive oil, fresh herbs, sugar, salt and pepper. Then pass them through a chinois, if you dont have one of those you can skin the tomatoes and hand blend them or just pass them through a normal sieve but it's harder work and getting rid of the seed is nicer than blending it in.
Then I use this as a base for lots of stuff, nicest is with chicken, which I joint and filet and chop all the meat, then boil the carcass for a bit to make a stock then mix that with passata. Fry your chicken a bit then throw it into the tomatoe sauce and let the whole lot reduce. You can add chili if you wish.
No amounts or anything with this, but it's worth getting a chinois to make passata and tomatoe sauces.
Serve with pasta or rice or whatever.

The Sweeper

My favourite is definitely lemongrass chicken at the moment.

Joint a whole chicken into ten pieces, leaving the skin on - two wings, two thighs, two drumsticks, four breast pieces. (Trust me, this dish is FAR better if you leave the bones in the meat, so you should even have the ribs still on the back of the chicken breast pieces. Helps keep everything moist.)

Into a blender, put:

*one large onion (or a handful of shallots), skinned and cut into chunks
*a large piece of ginger, (1.5 inches), skinned and chopped into chunks
*garlic (to your taste - I tend to use about five large cloves), skinned
*fresh red chilis to taste - I use a whole medium red chili and two whole red birdseye chilis
*three stalks of fresh lemongrass, cut into chunks
*two tablespoons cold water
*a good splash of fish sauce

Zap this in the blender until it's smooth. It'll turn an orangey colour.

Drop your chicken pieces into a roasting tray and pour the marinade over them. Toss them about in it so they're all well coated. Leave to sit for as long as you please - ten minutes, an hour, three hours, or even just the time it takes to pre-heat your oven to 200 centigrade.

Before putting the baking dish into the oven, turn the chicken pieces so that the skin sides are facing up. Take about two tablespoons of ghee (clarified butter used in indian cooking) and dot it about between the chicken pieces, a bit here and a bit there.

Bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes. The skin will crisp up and blacken slightly, the ghee is FAR better than oil to keep the chicken moist while cooking.

Use a tongs to take the cooked chicken out of the marinade and onto a hot serving platter. Sprinkle chopped fresh coriander over and provide lemon wedges. Serve with whatever you please - I like basmati rice and a thai vegetable curry side (baby new pots, baby corn, green beans and carrots cooked with red curry paste and coconut milk, with a dash of fish sauce and a couple of kaffir lime leaves for flavour).

Once you get the hang of it, it takes less than an hour end to end, including rice and veg curry.

To. Die. For.

Smoggy

Cheers for the feedback .

Bulb2k4 :
I love fresh pasta sauce , so Im gonna give your recipe a shot , gonna look out for a chinois first , as this is the first time I have heard of one.
"but it's worth getting a chinois to make passata and tomatoe sauces" are they like a mangle ? as I have a pasta maker that rolls out the pasta ( gathering dust )

Minesajackdaniels :
This recipe is right up my street, as im into making spicy food ( mainly currys ) so im always on the look out for something new and interesting and this certainly is. Would it effect your recipe if I changed the "whole chicken into ten pieces" into a chicken breasts. As im a big baby when it comes to cutting up meat, the whole dead flesh side of cooking really turns me off, as I think im a disillusioned veggie at heart. Also is fish stock cubes massivly different from a fish sauce ?

Blub2k4

I had the spelling wrong it's a chinoise, there's a wiki entry on them. I got mine in the kitchen suppliers on Pearse St, Sweeney O'Rourke's, it cost 25 euro ish, but worth every penny, it's a good idea to get a ladle which fits it approximately as well to use to rub the stuff through it although a pestle will do the job too.

Ooops wiki entry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinois

The one I have has a sieve at the bottom and is less like a collander, does the same job though.

BuffyBot

Also is fish stock cubes massivly different from a fish sauce ?

Yes. Fish sauce comes in bottles somewhat like soy sauce. It's quite salty and tastes a little..fishy

The Sweeper

Smoggy wrote:

Minesajackdaniels :
This recipe is right up my street, as im into making spicy food ( mainly currys ) so im always on the look out for something new and interesting and this certainly is. Would it effect your recipe if I changed the "whole chicken into ten pieces" into a chicken breasts. As im a big baby when it comes to cutting up meat, the whole dead flesh side of cooking really turns me off, as I think im a disillusioned veggie at heart. Also is fish stock cubes massivly different from a fish sauce ?

Okay, first, sectioning a whole chicken is difficult the first time, better the second, and after the third time you'll wonder why you never did it in the first place. People like Delia and Hugh Fearnsley Whittingstall show what to do in step by step photos and you can find guides on the interwheb. You've GOT to have a sharp knife - but after that, it's really not a gorey icky procedure. As for whether using chicken breasts would make a difference - no, but ONLY if you buy the ones that are still on the bone and have the skin on. Those slimy pre-pack fillets you get in the vacuum shelves in the supermarket will NOT do the same trick. (And the bone-in skin-on ones are cheaper too.)

Fish sauce - this is basically what the Indonesians use instead of salt. Fish sauce is a fermented fish substance, not remotely like stock. It's a dark, clear liquid, and to be honest, it smells. Seriously. It even smells to the degree that you'd think 'Jesus I'm not eating that'. It's used instead of salt in Thai and Indonesian cooking - similarly to how soy is used in Japan. When my more adventurous brother recommended it to me the first time, I was quite repulsed.

Now, however, there's a 750ml size bottle of it in my condiments cupboard! When you buy green or red curry paste from a store, and just add coconut milk to it to make a thai curry, it's all good. But go one step further, add some crushed lemongrass, a big shake of fish sauce and a couple of crushed kaffir lime leaves, it completely changes the face of the dish - for the better!

rsta

Smoggy wrote:

Im looking to cook a new dish this weekend and was hoping that someone would post up thier favorite dish that they like to make ,

the rules are :

No Lamb
No Offal ( kidneys etc )
And thats it

Check out my post, cook a piece of ham

Blub2k4

I did this myself this weekend actually for work lunches which are frozen off in the freezer already.

I made a large pot of tomato and red pepper sauce then split it in two.

With one half I added chicken stock and the pieces of a whole organic chicken, reduced that way down then mixed it with fusili.

With the other half I defrosted some lamb mince and made spicey meatballs with a little salt, a slice of bread, some fresh chives, some fresh parsley and a good dash of scotch bonnet pepper sauce. I fried off the meatballs first, to keep them together and cook them. They then got popped into the saute pan with the sauce with no further additions and this was reduced until the sauce was thick.
This was then served with steamed rice.

All finished with chopped chives and parsley, I have to use some of my fresh herbs cos they are overflowing at the moment.

Two different meals starting with one base sauce.

Blub2k4

The next time I have a whole chicken I might put up a fileting/jointing tutorial. It's a very handy one to have.

The Sweeper

Do you joint the whole chicken into six or eight pieces, or joint and leave the carcass (backbone and parson's nose) for stock?

Blub2k4

Minesajackdaniels wrote:

Do you joint the whole chicken into six or eight pieces, or joint and leave the carcass (backbone and parson's nose) for stock?

It depends on what I am doing with it. Generally I do it when it's going into something to be boiled, personally it doesn't bother me to pick chicken off the bones but the GF has problems with picking meat off bones and as a result I prefer to leave them out as I HATE people picking through food on the plate to pick stuff out.

I ALWAYS throw away the parsons nose, it's fat I just dont want anywhere near my meal. This is really a habit from Duck but I stick to it with chicken too.

Normally when I am finished I have two breasts. Two legs with thighs and various smaller bits and pieces. (that'd be 6 pieces )

The carcass and skin would normally go to stock, although I will cheat too and add some M&S chicken stock as it rocks

Spastafarian

Here's a nice starter;

Marinate some prawns in the juice of one lime, chili sauce, olive oil and salt and pepper for about 20 - 30 mins.

Thread the prawns and some cherry tomatoes (alternating between each) on kebab sticks (soak the sticks in water first so they don't burn) and brush the tomatoes with some of the marinade.

Fry them on a griddle pan (or frying pan) in garlic butter until the tomatoes are slightly blackened and squishy and the prawns are cooked (about 3-4 mins each side).

rsta

Spastafarian wrote:

Here's a nice starter;

Marinate some prawns in the juice of one lime, chili sauce, olive oil and salt and pepper for about 20 - 30 mins.

Thread the prawns and some cherry tomatoes (alternating between each) on kebab sticks (soak the sticks in water first so they don't burn) and brush the tomatoes with some of the marinade.

Fry them on a griddle pan (or frying pan) in garlic butter until the tomatoes are slightly blackened and squishy and the prawns are cooked (about 3-4 mins each side).

*drool* that is a new one i am definatley trying this weekend