Spiced Roast Lamb Chops with Roots and Alliums

I love lamb though my husband doesn't eat it so I don't cook it very often. But when I was looking through my Sophie Grigson recipe book Country Kitchen I decided it was worth cooking this dish even if I had to make him something else!

The book is divided into seasons and this recipe comes from the autumn section; even though I think we are probably in winter now it is really good for this time of year.

You can find the recipe on the Good Food Channel. It uses tamarind pulp; I wasn't sure where to get that from but was able to buy tamarind paste from the supermarket which seemed close enough. It gave the dish a lovely unusual flavour - a little sweet and sour at the same time.

I had a packet of nigella seeds in the cupboard - I can't remember where I got them from, I think it was a Turkish supermarket. I mixed the tamarind, oil, garlic, water, turmeric, cumin seeds and nigella seeds and drizzled it over some lamb chops, chantenay carrots, red onion and potatoes.

That's pretty much all you have to do; roast it all in one pan in the oven and allow the juices and flavours to mingle. Delicious!

Beer Can Chicken with Jim Beam Honey Ginger Ale

 

 

This recipe is also known as Drunken Chicken; either way it looks fairly undignified for the poor chook!

 

It's also more of a concept than a recipe - a way to cook roast chicken that makes it really moist and tender and gives it a hint of flavour from the drink - though don't worry, you don't end up with a chicken that tastes of beer! I used a can of ginger ale rather than beer - which had Jim Beam honey in it - giving a lovely gingery, slightly sweet flavour. In fact while I haven't tried it with beer (as per the recipe I found) I think this way is a lot better!

  

Your chicken will take the same amount of time as normal to roast so check the packet - usually about 20 mins per 500g plus an extra 20 mins but don't take my word for that. Preheat the oven and make sure there aren't any giblets inside the chicken cavity.

 

Open your beer can or ginger ale can and drink or pour out a little so the can is about 3/4 full. Rather unceremoniously up-end the chicken so the beer can stands up inside the cavity with your chicken upright on top!

 

 

 

Roast until the juices run clear. The steam from the liquid in the can will almost steam the chicken from the inside while it roasts on the outside (I'd advise you throw away what's left in the can - I know some people make gravy from meat juices but in this case the can will have what's dripped from directly inside the chicken... not fat that comes from roasting the skin).

 

I had to take the middle shelf out of my oven so it would fit. It does look quite funny, doesn't it?

 

 

 

Carefully remove the can from the chicken and carve the chicken as normal to serve - a bit unconventional I admit, but delicious!

 

 

Persian Roast Chicken with Walnut Pomegranate Sauce

Nigella says that roast chicken is the "basic unit of cooking" and when we had friends over for Sunday lunch recently, my first thoughts went to roast chicken. But I wanted something a bit more interesting than that, so I chose a recipe book I don't use very often - the Kitchenaid Recipe Collection - and had a look at the poultry section. There was a recipe for Person  chicken with walnut pomegranate sauce that looked delicious and really colourful so this is what I decided to make.

I changed the recipe a bit as the instructions were for a jointed chicken (using pieces like legs and thighs) and I wanted to do a whole chicken - one of the people I was cooking for doesn't eat meat on the bone so I thought being able to slice breast meat would be best. I also added oil to the paste mixture as it seemed too dry otherwise, and put the paste under the skin of the chicken as I don't like to eat the skin so it would be wasted by putting it on top. I used less onion and sugar in the sauce as well.

 

You need:
1 whole chicken
1 tbsp. cumin
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. oil
2 tsp grated lemon zest
1 tsp turmeric
1/4 tsp saffron threads, lightly crushed
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper

for the sauce:
1 onion, thinly sliced
Fry Light
2 cups pomegranate juice
3 tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/4 cup walnuts, finely chopped
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
50g pomegranate seeds

roast potatoes and vegetables to serve (though this would also go well with couscous or rice).


In a bowl mix the cumin, lemon juice and zest, turmeric, saffron, cinnamon, salt, pepper and oil until you have a thick paste. Spread under the skin of the chicken.

Cook the chicken according to pack instructions based on weight.

About 20 minutes before the chicken is ready to eat make the sauce. Place the onions with a few sprays of Fry Light in a small pan and heat until the onion has softened. Add the pomegranate juice, sugar, cumin and saffron. Bring to the boil and simmer until syrupy. Remove from the heat, stir in the walnuts, salt and pepper and pomegranate seeds.

The roast chicken was delicious as always and the spice rub was a nice change and the sauce went very well with it - though next time I might go back to bread sauce as I absolutely love bread sauce!

Roast Chicken and Yogurt Sauce and Homemade Pitta Breads

This is one of the best meals I've had in ages at home and it's so simple. It's perfect for a sunny day when you don't want a barbecue but you don't just want a salad; it's perfect if there are just a couple of you or if you need to feed a crowd.

I went to Hobbs House Bakery and spent a day cooking with the Fabulous Baker Brothers last weekend, which was wonderful - I'm in the process of writing a lengthy post about it! We baked different types of bread in the morning with Tom and tackled butchery in the afternoon with Henry. One of the things we made was pitta breads, which were so easy and tasted delicious straight from the oven - if you've only ever had shop-bought pitta breads then you don't know what you're missing!

I wanted to make pittas at home so I used the recipe from the first eponymously titled Fabulous Baker Brothers cookery book. I made eight or nine pittas from this recipe.

You need:

560g strong white flour

10g salt

300ml tepid water

20ml oil

5g dried yeast or 10g fresh yeast

I bought a small bag of flour from Hobbs House; Shipton Mill is in Tetbury in Gloucestershire, near Hobbs House and this is the flour that Tom Herbert uses. I also had some fresh yeast, which I have never come across before - does anyone know where you can buy it? Tom had some left over from what we used in the class and he gave us each about 50g to take home.

You simply mix the ingredients and form a dough, then you have to knead it for a full 15 minutes. Or if you have a Kitchenaid or similar machine with a dough hook, leave it running for ten minutes and at the end you have a lovely pliable ball of dough.

Cover with clingfilm or put a plastic shower cap over the bowl so it has room to rise. Put in a warm place for an hour until the dough has doubled in size.

Preheat your oven to the absolute highest temperature it will go. Put a baking tray or baking stone in the oven to get hot - you don't want to put your pittas on a cold tray then put it in the oven. Interestingly, a baking stone - which I had never heard of - is the same as a pizza stone but rectangular. So if you have a pizza stone you can use that for baking bread. Unfortunately I am in the process of selling my house and buying another so my pizza stone - along with a lot of other things - is in a storage unit. So I used a baking tray instead.

Another tip from Tom: weigh out pieces of dough so you have 100g each then your pittas will be the same size. Roll out on a lightly floured surface to a pitta bread shape.

Place on the oven tray or baking stone and you will see the pitta breads literally puff up. They only take a few minutes to cook so keep an eye on them - they are done when they are risen and slightly brown on top. Place on a wire rack to cool.

 I got eight or nine from the dough.

I decided to serve these with roast chicken, which you could serve either hot or cold. On a whim I bought a whole chicken with a piri piri rub from the Co-op that morning and roasted it in the oven so it would be ready just before I wanted to cook the pittas.

I made a virtuous sauce from fat-free plain yogurt and a little garlic puree, and spooned this along with some rocket into my pitta bread, and tore off the chicken with my hands and filled the pitta.

I served my chicken, rocket and yogurt pitta with some lettuce and some potato salad. It tasted delicious and was a fantastic dinner for a summer's evening.

Roast Chicken with Zesty Chickpea Stuffing

This is a variation on a roast chicken recipe that you could try over Easter. The recipe comes from Franglais Kitchen, though she says to use a whole can of chickpeas and I could only get half a tin into the cavity. So once you have the chicken that you plan to roast, you need:
half a can of chickpeas
half a lemon
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp garam masala
pinch of chilli flakes
salt and pepper

Mix the chickpeas with the seasoning in a bowl

Spoon inside the cavity of the chicken and block the gap with half a lemon

Roast the chicken as normal, remembering to add on the cooking time for the extra weight of the stuffing

Carve the chicken and serve with the spicy chickpeas

I'm sending this to Bookmarked Recipes, hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes.

BBQ pork ribs

I found some spare ribs on a rare visit to a large supermarket (I usually shop online or in Tesco Metro-sized shops) and as it was something I don't come across normally I thought I would buy them and figure out what to do with them later.

 

I found a recipe for barbecue pork ribs that looked both simple and tasty. To make the glaze, mix brown sugar, ketchup, soy sauce and vinegar and heat in a small pan until the sugar has dissolved.

 Pour the glaze over the ribs, in a baking tin you have lined with tin foil and cook in the oven.

 It doesn't take very long to cook as there is not actually much meat on the ribs; the glaze will caramelize on top.

Serve with potato wedges - here the ribs are still attached to each other, it seemed less messy than splitting them all up but I still got quite messy when I ate them!

I am sending this to Four Seasons Food as their current theme to tie in with autumn is roasts. You don't have to just roast a joint of meat and serve it with roast potatoes- these BBQ ribs are roasted and make a really nice change. The challenge is hosted by Louisa at Eat Your Veg and Anneli at Delicieux.

Roast Chicken Stuffed with Garlic Mashed Potato

I saw this recipe for roast chicken stuffed with garlic mashed potato in the Mail on Sunday's You Magazine a long time ago, and it has resided in my box of magazine cuttings ever since - mainly because I love roast chicken cooked the traditional way, and doing anything else to it seemed sacrilege! But I finally decided to make this and was pleased with the outcome - though next time I will probably go back to roasting my chicken plain and simple.

Peel and boil potatoes, then mash them.

Mix in some creme fraiche and crushed garlic

Stuff the mashed potato inside the cavity of the chicken

Roast in the oven - calculate the cooking time based on the weight of the bird and the mashed potato together

When the chicken is cooked, carve and allow the mashed potato to be exposed - then scoop out with a spoon. This was very tasty but I missed my roast potatoes!

Easter garlic lamb cooked in hay

Easter Sunday lunch: roast lamb studded with garlic cooked in hay with all the trimmings

My parents came to stay over Easter which I thought was a good opportunity to cook a decent sized roast (I'm usually cooking for one so it isn't worth it). I don't cook lamb very often either as my boyfriend doesn't like it, but roast lamb is a traditional Easter dish and something that I love.

I saw a recipe in the Mail on Sunday's You magazine for lamb cooked on a bed of hay, which I thought looked intriguing- and I do have access to plenty of hay. Say hello to Moo who kindly let me have some of her eating hay for this recipe.

The recipe is quite simple and doesn't use many ingredients. I had a 2.1kg leg of lamb; I made small cuts all over it with a sharp knife and sliced five cloves of garlic, then inserted the slices into each cut. Drizzle with oil and season.

Then surround the lamb with hay but don't cover it. Cover the whole thing tightly with foil.

The hay gives off a little bit of smoke but it didn't burn, and two and a half hours later we had this:

After lifting out the lamb to carve I removed as much of the hay as possible.

I'm not sure how much of a flavour the hay gave to the lamb, but it was beautifully cooked and you could taste the garlic. My mum was in charge of the roast potatoes and gravy and we had a great Easter Sunday lunch.