Soul Food September!

Soo, back to uni, moved in to the new house with my friends and I'm all settled in with my very own double bed! We decided to have a monthly house meal, themed with various cuisines and our first one was Soul Food September!

It was a really nice way to bond as a house and we cooked some really great food, everyone was in charge of their own section of the meal and we had a great evening!

Buttermilk was our core ingredient for this meal, we used it in the chicken marinade and in our biscuits! And then we used the leftover buttermilk to make pancakes! I did a lot of reading before cooking, because it was important to me to use as many authentic techniques in the meal as possible.

Here was our meal:

Southern Fried chicken

With the chicken I read a few articles on the best ways to cook and marinade it and the buttermilk seemed to be a great way to get succulent chicken. We used The Guardian's recipe as a basis, but as always we added extra seasonings from the ole store cupboard including garlic, chilli, paprika (both normal and hot), ginger, thyme, chilli flakes, salt and a magi cube and a chicken stock cube, soaked it in buttermilk and left in the fridge for about 6 hours. We also seasoned the flour with garlic, chilli, paprika, thyme and chilli flakes.

We followed the recipe with the shallow fry and cover technique and then put on a plate with kitchen towel to drain some of the oil, while we cooked the rest of the meat.We found that it was really important to ensure that the oil was piping hot, but on a low heat before and during cooking, otherwise the chicken would burn on the outside before cooking all the way through. The chicken was soft and juicy and crispy on the outside and all together yummy!

Hoppin' Johns with Rice (or our take on it anyways)

This was so yum, mix of beef and beans in a stir fry - like sauce, on rice, my housemate makes this just from knowledge, so I'll have to learn how to make this myself before being able to report back!

Mac n cheese with Bacon

I made a simple white sauce, infusing the milk by bringing it to scalding point with a slice of onion, peppercorns and a bay leaf, covering and leaving to stand for 20 minutes before straining into a jug. Then I made a roux with melted butter and flour and slowly whisked the infused milk in bit by bit. I then added the cheese to how cheesy I wanted it - we used cheddar.

In another pan I fried bacon lardons and a sliced onion and put into an oven dish. Boiled the macaroni for 11 minutes, strained and mixed in the cheese sauce, mixed it all with the bacon and onion mix and poured into the oven dish, topped with cheese and put it in the oven on 200 degrees C for about 10 mins or until the topping is as crispy as you want it. A lovely variation is to add breadcrumbs for extra flavour and crunch!

Biscuits with gravy
This was a total experiment as it was something I kept seeing in breakfast restaurants in America but never actually ordered it and had major regrets so decided that although it was a breakfast dish, we'd include it in our soul food feast. Again, did lots of research reading everyone's 101 tips on how to make the tastiest, lightest biscuits and finally settled on this recipe for the biscuits, with a pinch of bicarbonate of soda for that extra rise (with it's reaction with the buttermilk) and it actually turned out really yum! They were slightly crumbly and light, with a sort of scone like consistency.

Also made the sausage gravy, which was the perfect complement to the biscuits, using this recipe as a guide, but not really following measurements - which led to a really thick sauce, so maybe I'll follow the recipe a bit closer next time, to gain a better consistency. I also added some paprika for flavour which added a nice note.

Side note: I did have the BEST biscuits in a restaurant called Masa in Boston which was one of my best meals, had eggs benedict on biscuits and it was simply wonderful!

And we followed it all up with a lovely warming Apple crumble with custard.

I make my apple crumble by eye, as taught by my mother - who makes it amazingly, using about half the amount of fat as dry ingredients and rubbing together into a light breadcrumb mixture. We used flour, oats and caster sugar for our crumble topping. The apples are peeled and chopped and mixed with caster sugar and cinnamon and then placed in the oven dish with the crumble mixture layered on top and put in the oven for about 45 mins.

 

 

Back from the US of A!! - Pancakes!

I haven't posted in aages because I have been in America for the last 3 months! Very exciting times! I worked at a summer camp in upstate New York for 2 months and then I travelled North East America and even stopped in Canada for a bit. The whole summer experience was absolutely incredible and an experience that I will value forever and something that I would recommend that anyone and everyone do!

I thought that for my first post back it was an idea to do something classically American and that iss pancakes! I had some of the bestest and hugest pancakes in America (everything is crazy supersized over there) and so I thought I'd bring some of that back to my family one morning and I made John Torode's buttermilk pancakes, which turned out perfect both times I did it! Buttermilk seems to be this wonder ingredient that they use in a LOT of stuff (Southern fried chicken and biscuits and gravy to follow!)

Man, I gotta stop eating like this!

Mothers Day

I went home to surprise my Mum last weekend for Mothers Day! 

I planned a lovely 4 course meal with Indian flavours throughout and I'm very happy to report that it all went extremely well! I was very proud as I feel it was a mark of how far my cookery skill has come! 

The menu was as follows:

Spicy Potato with a coriander raitha, red chilli chutney and a lemon and rocket salad

Tandoori Prawn skewers with a butter sauce (which I got from James Martin, but cooked under a grill rather than a barbecue!)

Slow cooked lamb with pilau rice and greens 

Red velvet cake - this recipe has a lovely texture but unfortunately for whatever reason never turns out red, just a reddish brown but I'll post the link anyway - (Velvet Cake)

Everything came out extremely well and I hope to post recipes for all of the individual courses soon! 

Oaty Cookies

The term is drawing to a close, and as I am going home I wanted to use up all my perishables before the Easter Holidays, so I got baking and treated all my flatmates to an Easter treat! I had loads of oats left so I made some oaty cookies. They were yummy and chewy, but mind, this recipe makes over 40 cookies, so if you only have one tray like me, you're gonna have to do several rounds!

This is the recipe that I used Easiest Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies, but I used 200g of oats and 150g of flour because I wanted to use up my oats! I also used about 100g of caster sugar instead of the granulated as it provides a smoother mixture and I don't like too use a lot of sugar. 

Also, if they seem really soft and are almost falling apart when you try to pick them up when you take them out of the oven, that means they are perfect! Don't leave them in the oven too long, because as soon as they cool they harden quite considerably, and some of my batch ended up quite crispy because of this! (unless of course you like a crispy cookie!) I also whipped up a batch of brownies with some chocolate I had - my flatmates were quite pleased!

I had some leftover food that needed using up from past cooking, some carrots, mangetout, a lemon, a potato, about half a tin of lentils and an onion, and I needed something for lunches for the week. In my cupboard I had some spices and some couscous so I decided to make myself a couscous salad.

I chopped the carrot and the potato into cubes, cut the mangetout in halves, sliced the onion and fried gently in a little oil with a some garlic powder, curry powder, chilli and cumin powder. After about 5 minutes I put the lentils into the pan, to give them a chance to soak up the curry flavours.  Meanwhile, I put some couscous in a bowl with a lid, and squeezed in the juice of the lemon, salt, some ground coriander and some chopped fresh coriander, poured over the boiling water and left for five minutes to cook. When the veg were cooked through, I simply mixed them into the cous cous and left in the fridge until I was ready to take it out.

I ate this both hot and cold, simply reheating a serving in the microwave or taking it into uni as a packed lunch, I also ate some of the veg/lentil mix on its own which was really nice and very filling too!

Carrot Cake

My first time making a carrot cake, I was a bit nervous about how it would turn out but I needn't have worried! This cake was so wonderfully moist, I was really pleased with the turn out. I used Rachel Allen's recipe and it was pretty easy. The only thing was that I bought whole walnuts and it took quite a while to do all of the chopping but the result was more than worth it. I also used lemon zest rather than orange zest because I prefer the lemony flavour, which worked really well. I really recommend this recipe, with or without the icing, to have with a nice cup of tea!

Simple Stir fry Noodles

This recipe works with rice and noodles and is a really quick, easy and really adaptable meal to make. It's a good ole' reliable and it can be made vegetarian or not ( I made it with chicken) and its good and healthy too!

Season the chicken in some garlic, ginger and soy sauce on 2 chopped chicken breasts, I also threw in a dash of curry powder. Prepare the eggs, I used 3 eggs, added a little milk, light soy sauce and black pepper. Fry the chilli and a bunch of finely chopped spring onions I added some Chinese 5 spice from my spice box as well, but if you don't have any it'll still taste good! Add the veg you've chosen; you can add a variety of veg, here I used mangetout and red pepper, I really recommend baby corn and peas or all together, especially if you're keeping it veggie.


Fry away, chicken first, onions and veg, eggs and finally cooked noodles/rice and voila!

This recipe is very easy and adaptable - you can use more or less eggs if you do/don't like them, you can substitute pork for chicken or just have no meat at all - you can make so many different varieties and mixes that you can make it 10 times and feel like you've had a different meal each time!

Just make sure that you heat the pan hot enough, especially when adding the eggs or they won't scramble very quickly and disintegrate a bit into the rice/noodles.