Dorowat (Ethiopian Chicken Stew)

Dorowat (Ethiopian Chicken Stew)

Although it has been a while since we last posted, I can assure you we have been cooking.  The pressure of having a very young child to take care of is taking it's toll and the blog is the one that has suffered.  Mainly we have been cooking tried and tested recipes but every now and again we have searched for something a little different.

We have used the slow-cooker quite a lot recently too as it is good to prepare food during Olivia's morning snooze, hit the button and have tea ready 8 hours later.  This recipe is an absolutely fantastic example that we found in Making the Most of Your Slow Cooker. 

We changed things only very slightly so this is basically the recipe as stated in the book:

Vegetable Oil
3 Medium Onions (chopped)
3 Garlic Cloves (chopped)
1 tsp Minced Ginger
200 ml Vegetable Stock
250 ml Passata
3 Hard Boiled Eggs
6 Skinless Boneless Chicken Thighs
Salt and Pepper

Spice Mix (crushed and mixed)

5 Cardamon Pods
5 Cloves
1/2 tsp Ground Turmeric
1/4 tsp Ground Cinnamon
1/4 tsp Ground Nutmeg
1/2 tsp Cayenne Pepper

Method:

Pre-heat the slow cooker
Cook the onions over a medium heat for about 10 minutes
Add the garlic and ginger and cook for a further 2 minutes
Add the stock and passata and cook for a further 10 minutes till thickened a little
Add the spice mix and stir through and season
Transfer the sauce to the slow cooker and add the chicken thighs whole and push them down to just be submerged.
Cook on medium for 5 hours
Add the boiled eggs and cook for a further hour

We had this served with rice and flat breads and thought it was fantastic.  It had a lovely dark colour and a sweet and spicy flavour with just enough heat.  The boiled eggs was a new one on us but it seemed to work well.  In fact we enjoyed this dish so much we might do a little research into Ethiopean cuisine and see what delights we can discover.

Creamy Tomato and Chicken Stew

Another recent "freezer food" dish we have made a couple of times since the new addition to our family is the Creamy Tomato and Chicken Stew from the fantastic Soups Stews and Mash book.
Grandma actually introduced us to this dish when she brought round a meal for us in the first week that Olivia was home. She had modified the recipe slightly with the addition of potatoes and peas so that we wouldn't have to cook accompaniments. We have since made this recipe a couple of times, and it does freeze well and is delicious.

A quick word about the book: It was Grandma who introduced us to this book a while ago and we've since blogged the Beef and Peppercorn Stew. This book is fantastic. It has the look of an old-fashioned book, but it was actually published in 2000. It also seems that it is no longer available (on amazon anyway), but we managed to get hold of a second hand copy via ebay. Some of the recipes are quite adventurous, using different ingredients, and combinations that are not automatically thought of. The mash section is particularly inspiring. Instead of either plain mash, or sweet potato mash, there are recipes for pumpkin and white bean puree, swede and orange mash to name a couple. There is also a section of different breads to compliment the soup section.

Anyway, on to the recipe - taken straight from the book.

4 rashers bacon
2 tbsp oil
50g butter
300g small button mushrooms, halved
1.5kg chicken pieces
2 onions, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
400g can tomatoes
1 cup/250ml chicken stock
1 cup/250ml cream
2 tbsp chopped parsley
2 tbsp lemon thyme leaves

1. Chop the bacon into large pieces. Place a large, heavy-based pan over a medium heat. Brown the bacon, then remove and set aside on paper towels.
2. Heat half the oil and a third of the butter in the pan until foaming, then stir in the mushrooms and cook until softened and golden brown. Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon.
3. Add the remaining oil to the pan with a little more butter. When the oil is hot, brown the chicken pieces in batches over a high heat until the skin is golden all over and a little crisp. Remove from the pan.
4. Heat the remaining butter in the pan. Add the onion and garlic and cook over a medium-high heat for about 3 minutes, or until softened. Pour in the tomatoes, stock and cream. Return the bacon, mushrooms and chicken pieces to the pan and simmer over medium-low heat for 25 minutes. Stir in the herbs, season with salt and freshly ground pepper and simmer for another 5 minutes before serving.

We generally use boneless and skinless chicken thighs rather than chicken pieces, and use either a mixture of herbs (dried or fresh) or normal thyme from the garden. The potatoes and peas (or any other beg you like really) can be added along with returning the mushrooms, chicken and bacon to the pan.
We do this that the way the recipe instructions read is a little faffy. Why does everything need to be cooked separately and removed from the pan. For time purposes it is much easier to cook the chicken separately, then cook the veg and bacon together, it might take a little longer but allows us to nip out of the kitchen. Not actually sure if the way the method suggests adds anything to the flavour, but it could well do?
And we've eaten this just by itself with a spoon to slurp us the delicious sauce, or it could be served with an exciting mash, or crusty bread.
This recipe was even appreciated by Nana, who is well-known within the family for not liking things with too much spice, herb, garlic, onion, pepper, or translated as "flavour"!

Pork with Paprika and Olives

For those of you who know us, you'll know that we received a special delivery on 26th of November 2011. The arrival of Olivia Rachel is the main reason why we haven't been posting for a while.
We've changed the way we're eating over the past month, depending a lot on one pot meals that can be prepared quickly, slow cooker meals or casseroles or things that will freeze well. The next few posts will be of the meals we've cooked that seem to freeze well, and are easy to prepare, the first of which is Pork with Paprika and Olives.

We spotted this recipe in the January edition of Good Food magazine and was an advertisement feature for Magners.

Recipe (taken straight from Good Food magazine) (as is the picture, due to my camera being police evidence following a break in, but that's another story)
Serves 4

500g/1lb 2oz diced pork leg or shoulder
1 red onion cut into thin wedges
2 garlic cloves, crushed
100g/4oz chorizo, cut into chunks
1 tsp smoked paprika
400g can chopped tomatoes
300ml/half pint chicken stock
400g can chickpeas
100g/4oz green olives, drained and rinsed
zest and juice of 1 lemon
small bunch parsley, chopped
crusty bread to serve

1. Heat oven to 150C/130C fan/gas 2. Season pork. heat a little olive oil in a large flameproof dish. add the pork and brown all over. Remove from dish and set aside. dd the onion and garlic to the dish, and cook until softened. Add the chorizo and paprika, and cook for 2 mins, then add the tomatoes and stock, along with the pork.
2. Cover with a lid, put in the oven and cook for 1 hour. Add the chickpeas and olives, and cook for 1 hour more. Stir in the lemon and parsley, and serve with crusty bread.

This dish is one of our current favourites. The flavour is rich with the tomatoes and chorizo, yet fresh and zingy with the addition of the olives and lemon. Plus being pork, it offers excellent value for money, especially when supermarkets have different offers on meat over the holidays! We serve it with a little rice, and sometimes a bit of green veg. We have found that is does freeze well, but don't really know how long it will keep in the freezer, as once we know it is in there, it doesn't stay there for long!

Chicken and Broccoli with Pesto

I promised you another idea for what to do with chicken thighs and half a broccoli so here it is.  As is often the case I went to the BBC Goodfood website again for ideas and this seemed perfect.  The original recipe had some great reviews and I was intrigued by the use of Pesto at the end.  The recipe has been (slightly) adapted from the original in that I replaced the spring greens with leek and reduced the quantities to serve 2.  As it is October I felt I couldn't call it "Spring Chicken in a Pot" so I put my creative hat on and came up with this inspired title: Chicken and Broccoli with Pesto



Chicken and Broccoli with Pesto

 Now I admit it doesn't look particularly attractive but it was very tasty indeed.  The pesto gave an unusual twist to an otherwise light stew and the amount of pesto you use can determine how rich you want it.  Personally I used 2 tablespoons as per the recipe despite it serving only 2.  In hindsight maybe slightly less would be better perhaps by following the exact proportions.  It is, however, easy to add a little to taste and take it from there as it is the last ingredient.

What you will need (what we used for 2):

A small onion
1 leek (finely sliced)
3 boneless, skinless chicken thighs (chopped)
300 ml of veg stock (we used gluten free)
Half a medium broccoli (cut into small florets)
8 baby new potatoes
100g frozen peas
3 spring onions (finely chopped)
1 or 2 Tablespoons of green pesto
Olive Oil

Method:

First fry the onion and leek in a large, heavy pan in the olive oil for 5 minutes
Then add the chicken and cook till browned

Add the potatoes, stock and a little pepper and bring to a simmer
Cover and cook for 30 minutes
Add the broccoli, peas and spring onion, bring to the boil and cook for a further 5-10 minutes

Stir through the pesto, heat through and serve








So give it a go.  Its nice and healthy, great for the freezer and you can even pretend it is still spring!!

Asian Pork and Aubergine Hotpot

Why is it that whenever we want ideas for a recipe we go straight to google?  We have probably 200 cookbooks at home (in a very small house) and we don't really make use of them.  The good thing about going to google though is that very often the kind of dish you are looking for is on the BBC Good Food website.  A favourite from the website became tea for the last 2 nights running.

Asian Pork and Aubergine Hotpot with Rice

Now there is not much point in me explaining the full details as I changed very little from the original recipe, so think of this more as a recipe review.  The full details can be found here.

The first time we made it Fran felt there was too much Star Anise so this time I just used 3 (but this is personal taste as I quite liked the aniseed kick).  We didn't have Muscavado sugar so used molasses instead.  Also, we chose pork shoulder steaks rather than pork belly which we have found to be too fatty in the past.

Here is how we did it:

Brown the meat in batches and put aside (I used a colander to lose some excess fat -but then used it anyway while cooking the aubergine!)

Brown the aubergine in batches (adding a little of the pork fat as above) and put aside

Heat up the sugar till beginning to caramelise and add the pork and aubergine and coat

Add the chopped ginger, chilli and onion and cook for a few minutes

Then add the star anise and cinnamon stick with a splash of fish sauce and coriander stalks (chopped)

Add water to about a third of the dish, cover and cook undisturbed for 1 hour (200c)



When ready to serve, add lime juice, some more fish sauce, chilli and coriander

mmmm










One of the most important ingredients in this dish I think is the lime juice at the end - the flavours just dance in your mouth.  Also, although it needs about an hour to cook the pork, don't over-do it as the aubergine will become mushy.  The recipe says large chunks of aubergine - so you want to keep the shape if possible. 

Often with a stew it gets better if it is left for a while - we definitely found this as we had it two days in a row.  On the night we made it - it tasted great but had perhaps a little too much water (so be careful).  But left in the Le Creuset over night - the flavours really combined without over-cooking, the sauce thickened a little and then after heating on a medium temperature for 20 minutes was yummy the next day.  Perhaps this dish would work better if cooked in the morning - left to settle then re-heated in the evening (just a thought).

Anyway - we love this recipe - the proportions made 5 good sized helpings and will freeze.  Plus this is Gluten-Free so happy days!

Briam

The next challenge following our trip to Kenyon Hall Farm was to find a nice recipe to make use of the giant courgette we'd bought for 10p!!  To be honest thought this wasn't a difficult decision as one of our favourite dishes in the whole world (and very simple to cook) is Briam.

Briam - the original in Elounda. Served with homemade crispy bread

Briam is a Greek dish that we first tried while on holiday in Crete this year.  It is simply Vegetable Stew but all the recipes I have seen and indeed the version we had it was obviously baked - so I describe it as Baked Vegetables!

We had been on a little trip into the mountains near Elounda and visited an Olive Press (where the olive oil for this dish came from).  The guide took us to a taverna - where the host was a non-English speaking elderly Greek lady.  We were asked by the guide if we wanted food - as always we said yes.  Expecting a menu to be presented we were a little surprised to be told that today she had cooked Briam!  We shouldn't have been concerned with the lack of choice though as it turned out to be the best dish of the holiday.  Also it was rather charming that the host decided what the guests were going to eat.

Since returning we have tried a few versions - including a Rick Stein recipe that had lots of vegetables in it but it didn't quite bring back the memories of the Briam we had eaten, perhaps as it had too many ingredients.  We then set about replicating the dish we had tried in Crete.  We knew it had been baked for a long time and it was swimming in delicious Olive Oil.  Interestingly it only used 2 main ingredients: Courgette and Potato.  But I think the simplicity is the making of this dish and allows you to taste the fine olive oil.  This has been tested on Parents to critical acclaim :)

Briam - Baked Vegetables (our version)

You will need:

500g waxy baby new potatoes sliced
1 large courgette sliced
500g fresh tomatoes
1 large onion
3 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon dried oregano
Salt and pepper
A ready supply of the best savoury olive oil you can find

Make the tomato sauce.  This version needs everything to be finely chopped so I used the mini chopper.  First blitz the onion and garlic and soften on a low heat in olive oil.  Blitz the tomatoes in batches and add to the onion.  Season well and add oregano.  Simmer for 20 minutes.

Using a heavy oven proof dish such as a Le Creuset and begin assembling the dish.  First build a layer of potato, then a layer of courgette.  Season well (probably more salt than you are comfortable with) and a covering of olive oil.  Then add a third of the sauce.

Continue layering up, remembering to add plenty of salt each time.  These proportions should make 2 or 3 layers with the remainder of sauce poured over the top.

It should look something like this.








Add more oil, season, cover and bake in the oven for one hour. 
Remove the lid - give it a bit of a stir and add a little water so you can just see the juices below the top layer and return UNCOVERED for a further hour.

What you should be left with is a mouthwatering dish of baked vegetables that we find can be eaten as a main with crusty bread or side dish to anything really.  Season (again) - sorry to harp on but it really needs good seasoning and serve.





This is easily one of our favourite dishes and I even have some in a tub for my tea at work tonight :)

Beef and Peppercorn Stew

Well there is no more chicken left so time again to think about food for work.  Thankfully there were just enough microwave trays after Fran's red and grey soup to freeze another stew.  This seems a good time to introduce you to a favourite recipe book of ours.  It is packed full of great stews and soups (and mashes) and is conveniently called "Soups, Stews and Mash".  Quite a number of my family members had this book and we were lucky enough to find it on ebay for 99p!!  What I like about this book is that it is adventurous but not ridiculous - there is no "shin of a virgin calf" type of ingredient.  Everything can be found in the supermarket and there are bags of ideas.

The dish I decided to do is tried and tested and is the ultimate in comfort food.  It is very filling having beef and potatoes and it has that very satisfying black pepper kick.  Probably best as a winter dish but I think the summer is over now anyway.

Beef and Peppercorn Stew

You will need (these are my proportions and gluten-free):

800g Stewing Steak
2 Teaspoons Cracked Black Peppercorns
40g Butter
2 Tablespoons Oil
2 Onions
3 Gloves Garlic
1 and half Tablespoons Plain Flour (Doves Farm Gluten and Wheat Free)
2 Tablespoons Brandy
750 ml Gluten-Free Beef Stock (2 knoor cubes)
1 Tablespoons Gluten-Free Worcester Sauce (Life)
2 Teaspoons Dijon Mustard
500g Baby new Potatoes
(Some) Cream
Parsley (if you wish)

Toss the cubed steak in the peppercorns, heat some butter and oil and brown the meat in batches and set aside.

Cook the onion and garlic in the juices.  Then add the flour and cook for 2 mins.
To the pan add brandy, mustard and stock.  Put the steak back, cover and simmer on the hob for 1.5 hrs (keep checking and stir occasionally).

Add potatoes and simmer uncovered for 30 mins.

Add cream, stir and remove from the hob. 
Parsley to serve.

I like to have it with a pile of green veg at home of an evening or just a simple bowl of it at work with a roll  makes a very satisfying dinner.




The proportions made 5 good size work meals - but probably about 4 evening meals.