Todas las Americas chilli

Having finally had some time away from work (which mainly means having some time away from trains up and down the country) I'm back to getting busy in the kitchen.

I had a great trip to Waitrose this afternoon to stock up on ingredients this afternoon and the rest of the week, and as a result now have the fixings for roast poussin with turnip and potato mash, dolmades, individual veggie pot pies with three root veg mash with goat's cheese, blueberry cheesecake, and Christmas cake and puddings. The poussins and turnip mash are for lunch tomorrow, the next three are for dinner with friends on Tuesday, and the latter for sending off to Canada and Japan in good time for them to mature in advance of the big day. I'll blog those recipes as I do them, but today was all about the chilli of the three Americas.

I, along with every other ex-student cook, have been making chilli for the last decade. The version I came up with tonight was not only really, really good, but also incorporated key ingredients from north, central and south America. I'm sure any Mexican looking at the recipe would faint with horror but it has to be one of the best iterations I've ever made. If you fancy doing it yourself, you'll need:

500g minced beef (10% fat - standard lean in the UK)
1 large onion
Glug of groundnut oil
3 cloves garlic
2 fat small red chillies
1/3 jar pickled green jalapenos
Ground cumin
Ground coriander
Dried oregano
Ground hot paprika/cayenne pepper mix (sold over here as Hot Paprika)
Plenty of Maldon salt and fresh ground black pepper
1/3 bottle of good Chilean red wine
100g 70% cocoa solids Venezuelan dark chocolate
1 14 oz tin chopped tomatoes
Large squirt tomato puree
1 14 oz tin red kidney beans
Large slug maple syrup

Plenty of brown rice, sour cream and grated cheese to serve.

Serves four as a main with no pudding, six with it, and two for several days with quite a few leftovers.

1. Finely dice onions and fry gently in groundnut oil in a large, heavy bottomed saucepan until softened, about 5 minutes. Add finely diced garlic and roughly chopped red chillies and jalapenos.
2. Shake in about 2 tsps each of cumin, coriander and paprika. Then about a tablespoon of dried oregano.
3. Wait til you can smell the spices cooking, a minute or two, and add the minced beef to the pot. Fry together on a medium heat until the beef is mostly browned off.
4. Add in the tomato puree, stir, and cook off for another minute or two.
5. Throw in the red wine, chopped tomatoes, kidney beans and chocolate. Cook off gently for about 40 mins (you can make the rice whilst this is simmering away).
6. Taste and season with salt and pepper and maple syrup, adding in more chilli or wine if you need it.
7. Serve with brown rice, a splodge of sour cream and grated cheese on top.

This always tastes better after a day or two in the pot to solidify (and we'll be having it for dinner on Monday) but to be honest was pretty good the first time around. I'll liven it up again with a little more red wine and seasoning. If you use standard dark chocolate you won't need as much maple syrup or red wine, and next time I try this version, I'd use less wine but throw in a bit of balsamic vinegar and Worcestershire sauce to balance out the flavours. This version though is complex, pleasantly smoky and excitingly sweet and savoury all at once. Let me know if you try it...

Cold and manflu cure

I've always been a firm believer that what you eat impacts on your mood and health more than almost any other factor - and when faced with mopey ill partner, my thoughts immediately turn to comforting, soothing, healing food. J woke up yesterday with the beginnings of a cold. As both of us were sneezing like... well, sneezy people, what with all the dust yesterday I thought I'd give it 24 hours to check he was actually ill before food-ministry.

I spent a while googling chicken soup recipes that took less than three hours to cook (seriously, who has three hours to cook after work?) and for which I had most of the ingredients for in the house. I found something perfect on BBC Recipes, not a particular favourite of mine (I generally find All Recipes a bit more useful). I was looking for something with a little spice which to clear out his head-cold and be nourishing, pique a diminished appetite and be generally life-affirming.

If you make Thai or Malaysian on a regular-ish basis, the ingredients for Spicy Chicken Dumpling Soup should be mostly to hand with just a couple of fresh ingredients to buy on the way home from work. I'm not posting the link directly as I made a few amendments (some of the quantities were really odd) and this turned out delicious.

Here's a picture someone else made earlier (notice that you can also use udon noodles apparently as well as rice ones, although the delicacy of the rice noodles is nice with the lumpiness of the dumplings).Mine didn't quite end up looking like this but not far off - the aim is a fragrant coconutty broth with bite-sized dumplings.

For the chicken dumplings

- 2 medium-sized chicken breasts, minced (no, nowhere sells chicken mince, as I found out this afternoon. Putting them through the cheese grater function on a food processor does a pretty good job; equally dicing it very, very finely should do the trick too)
- Half a small can of bamboo shoots, drained, chopped finely
- 1 long red chilli, seeds removed, chopped finely
- 2 tsps freshly grated ginger
- 2 tbsps chopped coriander leaves
- 2 tsps nam pla (fish sauce)
- 2 tbsps cornflour
- salt and fresh ground black pepper

For the soup

- 800ml chicken stock (I used Knorr concentrate as I'd run out of homemade, was perfectly nice)
- 1 large can coconut milk
- 2 kaffir lime leaves
- 1.5 inch piece of root ginger, peeled and sliced thinly
- 1 tbsp nam pla
- Juice of one lime (small)
- Pinch caster sugar
- 4 baby pak choi (I couldn't find baby ones so used 2 regular sized, with the cores cut out, which tasted fine)
- 1 sachet of Amoy ready-to-wok rice noodles

To serve

- 2 sliced red chillies
- 8 sprigs fresh coriander
- 2 kaffir lime leaves, finely sliced

1. For the dumplings, put the minced chicken, bamboo shoots, ginger, chilli, coriander, fish sauce and cornflour into a large bowl. Season with salt and pepper.
2. Mix it all together by hand (this is nice and squidgy) until it holds in a large ball. Rinse your hands, and make lots of teeny weeny dumplings, and set them to one side (I made massive ones and they were hard to eat!).
3. Put the stock, coconut milk, lime leaves and ginger slices in a large pan and bring to a simmer.
4. Reduce the heat to low, add the dumplings and simmer gently for five mins or so until just cooked through (they cook far more quickly than you expect).
5. Stir in the fish sauce, lime juice and sugar.
6. Add the pak choi and rice noodles, bring back to a simmer and remove from the heat.
7. To serve, ladle the soup into serving bowls, dividing the dumplings evenly.
8. Serve with the chillies, coriander leaves and lime leaves scattered on the top.

It says it serves four, which it probably would do with pudding. I made this panful for the two of us and we couldn't finish it - very, very filling. If anyone reading this makes it, do let me know how it turns out, and whether you made any changes.

Anne's last supper - well, lunch

My friend Anne, after a number of happy years in London, announced a couple of months ago that she was moving back to Vancouver (sniff, sob). She came around to mine for a final meal before I took her to the airport. The day's challenge was to make something light enough that wouldn't make her feel too full for sitting around and waiting a while for a flight (pesky ash cloud) and would be suitable for brunch - and also didn't take too long to cook or too much attention when I wanted to talk to her.

I'd tried Nigella's Red Prawn and Mango Curry before a couple of times, but never felt the recipe got it entirely down pat. This is my take. I also dislike her preference for pre-cubed veg, lazy devil, and this is much cheaper. Serve with steamed or boiled jasmine rice (in small quantities - curry to rice ratio should be about half and half).

1/2 tsp of sesame oil, 1/2 tsp vegetable oil
4 - 6 spring onions chopped roughly
2 large tbsps of red thai curry paste (a non-salty one if poss)
1 400g can organic coconut milk (not low fat or it comes out too runny)
150ml chicken stock from homemade (if making with concentrate or stock cubes use half recommended quantity)
2 tsps nam pla (fish sauce)
1 smallish butternut squash or half of one and most of a sweet potato, cubed small-ish
Around 300g fresh prawns (much nicer than frozen)
Juice of half a lime
1 large mango, cubed small-ish
Generous shake of green tabasco (red will do)
Chopped coriander, generous handful.

Heat up the oils in a large pan; when hot fry the chopped spring onion. Stir in the paste; add the stock, fish sauce and coconut milk, stir til mixed well. You can start cooking the rice now. Bung in the squash (and/or) sweet potato to the sauce mix and simmer for about 10 mins - should still have a slight bite to it.
When veg are ready, throw in prawns and bring back to boil; add mango and lime juice and heat through. Serve on the rice with coriander chopped on top. Tabasco to serve too.

I find the variation in flavour in this recipe great - it gives you lots to play with; this version is very saucy and fragrant without being overpowering, but there's barely any heat, even though I've upped the curry paste. Definitely one to play with and I think she really liked it.

(We had Gu ganache for pudding which was gorgeous - I can't do desserts from scratch when we're due to eat at 12.00pm).