Cajun Chicken Quinoa Salad

In celebration of receiving our first issue of our subscription to Good Food Magazine here is a recipe based on one we found in that, the April of the magazine.
This was another week day lunches solution and was very very tasty indeed. It has enough flavour from the seasoning and stock to stop the cravings for anything salty and fatty that might be calling to you from the vending machine (or is that just me?), and with the lentils as well as the quinoa it was very filling.
The recipe in Good Food Magazine uses apricots, but I'm not a big fan of those, so I used a couple of peppers instead. Not really a logical substitute, I know. Also the recipe says to use 4 chicken breasts, but I think this is because it is for a main meal for 4. I only used 2, to keep the costs down and to make it lighter.

2 skinless chicken breasts, cut into small chunks
1 tbsp cajun seasoning
100g/4oz quinoa
600ml/1pint hot chicken stock
1 red pepper, cut into dice
1 green pepper, cut into dice
2 red onions, sliced
175g lentils
Olive oil

1. Heat the oven to 220C/gas 6. Coat the chicken with the cajun spice and place on a baking tray. Drizzle with a little oil and cook for about 20 mins until cooked through.







2. Cook the lentils according to the pack instructions. This involves, rinsing, and simmering for around 40 mins until tender.

3. Cook the quinoa in the chicken stock until tender. This takes about 15 mins and is when you see the germ start to separate from the grain.

4. Drain both the lentils and the quinoa and mix with the chicken and all it's juices.

5. Fry the onions and peppers in a little olive oil until soft, but not brown. Then mix with the rest of the ingredients.








This was so good, I will make it again and again. In fact I think I will be living off it for lunches at work for a while!

Ainsley Harriott's Maddie Haddock

Last week, when cooking for one, I fancied something tasty, quick and relatively cheap.
I'd cooked Ainsley Harriott's "Maddie Haddock" recipe before some time ago, and remembered that it was easy, used store cupboard/fridge ingredients and was quick and tasty.
It comes from Ainsley's book All New Meals in Minutes which I've had on the shelf for a while. The recipe is called "Maddie Haddock" after his daughter as apparently it is one of her favourites.

 

I called in at Morrisons to buy some fish, and after watching and reading about The Big Fish Fight I was determined to use some white fish that wasn't cod or haddock. It seems that since Fish Fight Morrisons Fish counter has expanded and is now full of all sorts of different fish. I bought some Pouting fillets, which the fish monger skinned for me, for the grand total of 54p. Bargain. The fillets were quite small so I bought a couple.

I didn't follow the recipe from the book exactly, but modified the amounts, and obviously used gluten-free flour. I actually think I went overboard with the topping ingredients as there seemed to be loads of it. I've copied out the recipe below (with a simplified method), so you can see how it supposed to be done.
 
What you will need (from Ainsley Harriott's All New Meals in Minutes):

2 ripe tomatoes
150g mature Cheddar
2 salad onions, trimmed and finely chopped
4 tbsp mayonnaise
2 tbsp plain flour (we use gluten-free)
4 x 150g haddock fillets, skinned and boned
1 tbsp sunflower oil
a knob of unsalted butter
salt and pepper
(Serves 4)

Method:

1. Dice the tomatoes, removing the seeds. Chop the spring onions and grate the cheese. Mix all this with the mayo and season.

2. Preheat the grill to high. Dust the fish with seasoned flour and fry in a little butter and oil for around 2 minutes on both sides (until almost cooked).

3. Transfer the fish to a gratin dish and spread with the mayonnaise mixture.

4. Grill for 2-3 minutes until the cheese is golden and bubbling.

This is a lovely recipe, and with fish other than cod or haddock, is very cheap to make. It uses ingredients that most people are likely to have in already, and perhaps with more care than I took (since it was just me), it could be quite an impressive main course for a dinner party. I served it with a balsamic dressed salad.

Houmous (3 ways)

I found a really simple recipe for Houmous in Olive Magazine's 101 Global Dishes.  The first time I tried it I found I needed to add a little more water to get the consistency I wanted and after tasting felt there was too much tahini so last week I tried again and altered the proportions slightly.  To add a bit more interest I decided to add some more flavours to create 3 different kinds of Houmous.

So we ended up with:

Houmous, Plain and Simple
Houmous with Olives
Houmous with Roasted Red Pepper and Chilli

Here is what you will need:

Chickpeas (1 x 400g tin, drained)
Light Tahini Paste (2 tbsp)
Garlic (tsp crushed)
Olive Oil 3 tbsp
Ground Cumin 1 tsp
Lemon 1 juiced
4 tbsp Water
Red Pepper 1/2 medium
Medium Red Chilli (deseeded and halved)
A dozen black olives such as Hojiblanca (fresh from the deli)

First, make the basic homous to which the other ingredients will be added to make the interesting alternatives.

Add the chickpeas, garlic, tahini, olive oil, water, lemon juice to a food processor and season well.  Blitz for a minute or 2 depending on what consistency you want - add more water and blitz for longer to achieve a very smooth texture. 

Divide into 3 bowls - cut an olive in half to garnish and pop on top of one dish and that is your plain and simple one finished.  Allow to chill for at least an hour.






For the others it might be best to use a mini chopper as there will only be a small amount to blend through with the other ingredients. 

Take a handful of black olives (around a dozen halved) and add to the mini chopper with one of the houmous portions and again blitz for a minute.  Olive Houmous done.

For the final one - drizzle a red pepper and medium chilli with olive oil and roast in the oven at 200 degrees for about 20 minutes till softened and beginning to blacken.  Then add this to the final portion of houmous and blitz in the mini chopper.  This is wonderful and sweet with heat - I will make this again for sure.




Serve with toasted pitta, carrots, peppers and anything else you fancy dipping.  makes a lovely sociable supper.

Cafe Rouge, Deansgate, Manchester

When a friend came up to visit Manchester for the weekend, our choice of eatery was dictated plainly and simply by the vouchers we had! We're not proud of this, well actually, maybe a bit, something for nothing is always a good thing, but I would generally try to eat at independant places, or at least smaller chains, who don't necessarily offer discounts all the time. Although when a voucher presents itself, it would be rude not to use it. The voucher in question was free birthday champagne. You now see why we chose to use this! Anyway, I digress.

We'd booked Cafe Rouge on Deansgate for 4 people for 8 o'clock. There were some small concerns from my friend over this, as their website (or at least their voucher website) didn't seem to say there was a branch there. However, after checking the reservation was OK by telephone, the manager for the night introduced himself and promised that we would be looked after when we arrived.

We arrived to join the rest of the party, who had already ordered a bottle of wine for the table. We chatted for a while, and were given menus. I requested the gluten-free menu, which we were told was just being printed out. It was then delivered to the wrong table. After it finding its way into the right hands I was delighted to see that the dishes I had spotted from the main menu were also on the gluten-free menu, with hardly any adjustments. The gluten-free menu print out was also a print out of the lactose-free options. Something I've not seen before, but then again, I've never had the need to ask for this! Further reading of the menu, and I was a little disappointed. The steaks were listed as gluten-free, but not with every sauce. Only the mushroom sauce (I think, don't quote me) was fine, but not the others. To me, that sounds like all the sauces are bought in, as surely it doesn't take that much effort to substitute the flour (or in fact thicken with reduction) when making it fresh.

Our party ordered the baked camembert to share (with celery and carrots for me instead of bread) and the Goats Cheese Crouton salad for starters. And then two portions of mussels, a steak and the Poulet Breton. We did cause a bit of confusion with the side orders and which was going with which, and who was swapping with who, but the waitress coped fine, and knew exactly what we wanted.
The starter came, and was nice. I thought the size of the camembert was a little small, but it was meant for 2, and there were 3 of us eating it and I do love my baked camembert. So to be fair, that is just me. No-one else seemed left wanting more.

Then the confusion started.

The starter plates were cleared away and the mussels were brought. We sat waiting. And waiting. And waited some more. There were quite a few waiting staff - not waiting, but busying around. Doing what exactly, we're not sure. Our waitress spotted us and scooted off to find out what was going on. She came back to explain that mussels are often ordered as a starter so they came out before the other mains.
When the remaining mains came out, they were fine. My main dish was quite a large portion, and rather nice. The flavour of the tarragon and parsley coming through the sauce. The mash was creamy, and again, there was loads of it.

The side orders of fries that were supposed to accompany the mussels arrived half way through our mains.


We did order deserts. I had the "gluten-free" creme brulee as it was described as placed in front of me. But I suspect that it was actually identical to the "other" creme brulee we ordered. And the Tart Tatin seemed to be appreciated.

All this led to a discussion about service. My friend used to work at a restaurant where the waiting staff were responsible for making sure all the people at the table were served together, whereas here, that seemed not to be the case. We felt the timing of our meals was not acceptable, but the way our waitress explained how things had gone wrong, and the way she was very apologetic seemed to diffuse the situation. She dealt with us all night, and was faultless, even when we couldn't decide on who was eating what. The amount of staff around the restaurant, which wasn't actually very busy, shouldn't have led to the delay and the mix up, but the service from that one member of staff was very good. We were in two minds whether to leave a tip. We may not go back again given our experience, but the food was good enough (would be even better with a buy one get one voucher), but was the actual "service" received, the bad enough to not leave a tip?

Oh, and the Champagne? Not a branded bottle, but the bubbles did go down well!

Indus Tandoori, Denton

Before I write about this restaurant I just want to be clear about the way we review.  It may seem as though we love all the places we visit, however, as we mention in our profile, we are not food critics or experts which means we don't go out to find restaurants to rate.  The way our blog works is to talk about food we have enjoyed.  What this means in practice is that if we eat somewhere we are not keen on we generally won't write about it so our reviews are really recommendations.  Unless we feel compelled to tell you about a particularly bad experience, this is the way we intend to keep doing it.

With that in mind comes our latest discovery, Indus Tandoori in Denton.  They sadly don't seem to have a website but I did find this.

We have now been to the restaurant 3 times.  The first time was in its 1st week of opening and it has steadily improved since.  We have sampled a good number of their dishes now and think we can see what they are all about.  The 1st time we went we enjoyed the food but found it a little bland.  We had great discussions as to whether we had got used to such impactive flavours that when something more authentic/normal came along we weren't as bowled over.  The other concern was the plastic plates and smell of new fixtures.  We let them off for this as they had just opened.

On our second visit we were their only customers but again had a pleasant meal.  We were a little concerned, however, by the visit from licensing while we were eating - thought I was going to lose my beer!  Thankfully not.  Throughout our visits the service has been excellent and we really hoped that the place would get popular enough for them to invest in decent crockery!  Also, I think they may have suffered a little for opening so near Christmas time as I suppose people don't take too many risks when planning a festive night out and would more likely book somewhere they know.  We, on the other hand quite happily take risks.

We recently gave a general recommendation for Indus to friends who live in the area that wanted to try them for takeaway.  We told them the food tasted wonderfully fresh and individually created but we found the dishes we had ordered to be a little bland, however it may have been just a bad menu choice.  They ordered food and reported back that they loved it which gave us the impetus to give them one more try.  And we were very glad we did.

So this is to report back from our 3rd and most successful visit to Indus Tandoori.  Again the service was very attentive but not intrusive so full marks there.  There was another larger party eating there that seemed to be enjoying the night immensely which added something more to the atmosphere that was lacking previously.

We ordered the usual poppadom each in order to try the chutney tray.  They impressively serve up 5 trays (which you do pay for): Onion Chutney, Mango Chutney, Mint Sauce, Tamarind Sauce and a Lime Pickle.  All were lovely and fresh.





Next we had some mixed starters that I sadly cannot remember specifically and the menu adds no further clue but they were similar to spring rolls! And a portion of onion bhaji.
After a lengthy discussion with the waiter it transpired that the onion bhaji was indeed made with gram flour (as we thought) and safe for Fran.  But sadly Fran could not enjoy the rest which I had chosen.

Fran thoroughly enjoyed the bhaji and wasn't the least bit jealous of my excessive starter.







For main course we went for 2 main dishes; Butter Chicken and Manchurian Lamb which was described as "diced chicken cooked in thick sauce, garnished with green chilli, spicy, sweet & hot dish with mango chutney & spring onion" (well we were after flavour!)

We also had a side of Spinach (Saag Bhaji) which we have done on each of the 3 occasions we have visited.  This dish is absolutely delicious.  Wonderfully fresh and packed with flavour it is the best spinach side we have tried and has been just as good each time.





So did we have desert too?  I'm afraid not.  We ordered far more than we usually do but were able to take a doggy bag home with us which made a fantastic lunch the next day.

Our opinion of Indus has improved greatly since we first visited.  Initially we thought the food was a little bland but our most recent visit has put that thought right out of our minds.  One thing that stands out for us and I have touched on it in the post is the freshness of the food.  Each dish tastes like it was made to order and no 2 dishes have ever tasted the same.  The Butter Chicken was a winner for me.  It was all about the butter yet somehow wasn't overpowering in its richness.  The Manchurian Lamb was spicy yet sweet and unlike anything I have really tried before and was packed full of flavour.

We have been encouraged by the increasing numbers of diners and hope that the restaurant continues to impress.  They have a tough challenge though being situated so close to Blue Crown Takeaway and Aashiana Restaurant both of which are award winners in Tameside.  Despite this we think it is definitely worth giving it a try.  There are some very interesting dishes on the menu that we hope to gradually work our way through.  I get the impression that they are not a bog standard curry house and maybe for the more discerning diner.  The menu features a variety of fish dishes and some more unusual dishes like Kidney Karahi and Chicken Flambe cooked in red wine.  Well worth a visit.