Eggplant and Chicken Pot

Quick and tasty evening meal. When you come home from the office after a long and hot day, you need something to pick you up.
When you stash veggies in your fridge look for some that wont spoil so quickly and you have something to fall back to later in the week.

Eggplant is such a veggie. It keeps its smooth skin for a while.

Recipe:
400 g chicken breast
1 eggplant
300 g brown button mushrooms
1 shallot
1 can chunky tomatoes
3 medium tomatoes
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Sriracha

Chop all the veggies and the chicken.
In a pot or pan with a lid, heat up the oil and start with the seasoned chicken pieces and let them all get some colour.

Add eggplant and onion first and stir in well, after 4 minutes, add the mushrooms and the tomato chunks and season again.
Pour the canned tomatoes in as your sauce, bring to the boil again and  reduce the heat and close the lid and cook for 12-15 min or until everything is done. Add some Sriracha for heat.
Eat on its own or with some rice or pasta.

Spicy Banana Potato Soup

The origin of this recipe is from my newest cookbook from Sorted Food CBA2C. Can't be arsed to cook.

Since I love the spicy curry bananas and read diagonally across the recipe and was hooked. Next chance I was going to prepare it.
I bought bananas and small potatoes last Saturday and today was the day.
I pimped it a little, but the basic recipe is so easy to prepare.

Recipe:

3 bananas

500 g white potatoes

1 onion

1 spring onion

3 cm ginger

400 ml veg stock

600 ml milk

2 tbsp creme fraiche

1 tsp tumeric

1 tbsp curry powder

1 tsp mild chili

Salt anf pepper

Chives and coriander greens

4 tbsp butter

2 slices raisin bread

The first thing to do is peeling the potatles and boiling them until nearly done, not mushy.

While they cook, you have enough time to prepare the rest.

Use a bigger pot and melt the butter and start onions and ginger. Give them 3 min and add the bananas and spices.

Drain the potatoes and chuck into the pot too.
Next the broth and 400 ml milk.
Bring to a boil and take the stick blender and mix it.
Add a little milk and some creme fraiche.
For additional sweetness cut up some raisin bread, toss it in heated butter
Add coriander greens and chives.

Japanese Turkey Curry Rice

Curry Rice is the third favourite food among the Japanese people. It is on the meal plan in many house holds once a week.

You can have it with beef, pork, chicken, fish or pure vegetarian.
The Curry House is a restaurant chain you find all over Japan.

I watched many YT videos about Curry and ate it twice in Japan.

It is very different from the Indian Curry.
The curry roux makes a thick and creamy sauce. It is sold in blocks from regular to very hot and spicy.

Recipe for 4:
700 g turkey breast
4 potatoes
2 onions
1 large carrot
1/4 celeriac
10 cm leek
4 cloves of garlic
500 ml chicken stock
Salt and pepper
4 blocks of Curry Roux medium
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp Worchester sauce
2 tbsp ketchup

Brown the meat and chuck in the veggies. Stir and add chicken stock. Cook for 20 min.
Chop the roux blocks into small pieces and dissolve them in the liquid. Let it cook for 5 more min to thicken up.
Add ketchup, Worchester sauce and soy sauce.
If you like it a bit sweeter, add a bit of apple sauce.

Tomato Mango Chutney

One kilo of tomatos had to leave the kitchen one way or the other. They were harvested the beginning of the week and needed a purpose.
Most of the smaller ones in the bowl I have eaten over the last days- there are 3 more bowls full of them. I just came inside after watering the tomato plants and plucked an other 550 g off the vines.
I found this recipe on a LIDL site. But I adjusted it a bit.

Recipe for 5 jars:
1 kg tomatoes
2 ripe mangos
300 g onions
2 cloves of garlic
1 red fresh hot chili
30 g ginger
2 tsp coriander seeds
2 tsp mustard seeds
1 tbsp rapeaeed oil
50 ml white balsamic vinegar
60 g dark muscovado sugar
90 g light brown sugar
6 drops tabasco
Salt and pepper
1 tsp citric acid

Chop onions, garlic, chili and ginger.
Heat the oil and let the seeds pop, chuck in the 4 things above.
Let the onions get a bit soft.
Peel and destone the mango and cut it into small pieces.

Cut the tomatos into the same size.
Pour that into the pot.
Stir and add sugar and vinegar and some salt and pepper.
Cook for 30 min, add the citric acid and cook for 20 min more.
Fill them into clean jars.

Dosas with Raita

Dosas are a breakfast staple in the southern parts of India.

Some time ago I bought a package of flour mix for dosas. It was sitting in the cupboard and I was unsure if I was going to prepare it right. The batter should be spread on a flat pan and then baked on one side.
Yesterday I was looking for an other pan and found my Crêpe pan. I seldom make crêpes and the dosas came to my mind.

Sunday morning breakfast can be special sometimes. I got the package out and read the instructions. I knew that dosas are made out of fermented flour and I thought I had to give the batter a head start over night.
That was not necessary, the batter had to rest just 5 min.

I spread the batter - about 2 fl.oz. on a lightly greased surface of my cold pan and set it on medium high heat on the hob.
When the batter on top starts to dry out a bit, I sprayed olive oil over it. The dosa needs some time to get golden brown on the one side, so give it some time.

I served it with Greek yogurt mixed with fresh herbs from the balcony and oven roasted bell peppers out of a jar.

Mushrooms in Soy sauce and butter with Pasta

This is a recipe I adapted from Donal Skehan. He had this on his Instagram video recently. It is basically ready in about 15 minutes and tastes great and is vegetarian.

Mushrooms are the Umami in many dishes. Umami as the 5th taste in your mouth beside sour, sweet, salty and bitter. In many recipes the mushrooms are intensifying the taste of the dish. Porcini mushrooms in their dried version and shitake mushrooms are famous for giving a dish the Umami taste.

This dish is made with fresh brown button mushrooms. They are getting even more flavour though the added soy sauce and the creaminess of the added butter.

recipe for 2:
220 g Lingunine pasta
350 g brown button mushrooms
2 spring onions
5 cloves of garlic
1 red chili
1 tbsp olive oil
30 g chives
50 g butter
4 tbsp soy sauce
salt and pepper

Cook the pasta and drain it.
Heat up the oil in a large pan, add the mushrooms and give them 3 min to cook. Add onions and garlic and a bit of pasta water. Cook until everything is soft. Season and be careful with the salt.
Add soy sauce and butter and make a creamy sauce. Pour in the pasta with a little water an toss. Finish with chives.



 

Tomato Chicken

I saw Donal Skehan make something like this as a 15 min meal from his new cookbook.
I only caught some of it on Instagram story and he used chicken breast in it. That is the reason why it only takes 15.min to prepare.

I used chicken legs and they take a bit longer to cook.

At the moment in this abnormal heat my tomato plants are so full of hot ripe or overripe tomatoes. I pick a big bowl every day. I started making batches of tomato sauce again.
A recipe that uses fresh tomatoes is very welcome in the moment.

Recipe:
2 chicken legs
3 large tomatoes
A hand full cherry tomatoes
1 red onion
2 spring onions
4 cloves of garlic
1 bay leaf
1 stalk of sage
5 stalks of thyme
1 sprig of rosemary
2 tbsp hot paprika paste
1 red chili
500 ml chicken stock
Salt and pepper
1 tbsp olive oil

Season the chicken and give it a head start in a large pan with lid
Chop onions and garlic and the large tomatoes.
Chuck it all in the pan and give it 3 min.
Fill up with stock and add the cherry tomatoes whole.