Chicken Katsu Curry & Egg Fried Rice

This is my Boyfriend's favourite dish when we go out for Japanese, so decided to finally give it a go myself! It went down very well! I kinda just made the recipe up from looking at a load of other recipes and adapting it to what i had to hand.

Chicken Katsu Curry & Egg Fried Rice

Serves: 2

Cooking Time: around 30 mins

2 chicken breasts
Rice
3 medium eggs
1 red pepper, finely chopped
Soy sauce

25g Panko Breadcrumbs

Sauce
1/2 tsp paprika
1 1/2 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp tomato puree
2 chicken stock cubes (make 1/2 cup stock)
1 red onion, finely chopped

Egg Fried Rice:

1. Cook the Rice and leave to cool, add the chopped pepper. Mix the egg and soy Sauce.

2. Fry the rice in a wok for a few minutes, then push the rice to one side of the pan. In the other side of the pan pour in the egg mixture and leave to cook for a few minutes.

3. Once the egg has started to cook, scramble it and mix it into the rice and cook for a few more minutes.

Katsu Chicken Curry:

1. Dice the chicken breast into small chunks (you could do it in slices, or whole and slice once cooked). Roll the chunks in flour, then dip it into the egg, then roll them in the breadcrumbs. Bake for 15-20 mins.

2. Fry the onions in a small saucepan until soft. Mix together the chicken stock, curry powder, paprika and tomato puree, then add to the saucepan and simmer for 5 minutes.

3. SERVE!!

Slow cooked beef brisket

This is my all-time favourite way to do. A beef joint for Sunday lunch! 

Cooking time: at least 4 hours
Serves: 2+

• Beef brisket
• 1 bottle vintage cider (the best is old rascal but any cider will do - vintage is best though!)
• 2 red onions - roughly chopped
• 1/2 tbsp chilli flakes
• A small handful fresh herbs
• 1 tbsp bbq sauce
• 2 tbsp tomato pureé
• 1 tbsp gravy paste

1. Place the onions in the bottom of the cook pot. Place the beef on top.

2. Pour the cider over the beef. Mix together the chilli flakes, herbs, tomato pureé, gravy paste and bbq sauce with some hot water - to make 1 cup of liquid.

3. Pop the lid on and leave it to cook for a good few hours!

This always goes down well with the OH when I cook it. I usually serve it as a Sunday roast-type dinner with veggies and potatoes!

All the juices left in the cook pot once done makes a lovely gravy, just add gravy powder/granules to thicken it a bit!

Slow cooker roast chicken

Got a chicken this week so decided to try and find a recipe to do it in the slow cooker! I just googled "slow cooker roast chicken" and found this recipe. I have done slow cooked roast beef, but that's a recipe for another time!

This really is so simple - chuck it in the pot and leave it! No liquid needed because the chickens juices are enough to make gravy with! Maybe next time i'll sprinkle in a chicken stock cube...

Slow cooked roast chicken

Serves: however many!
Cook time: at least 7 hours

1 whole chicken - giblets removed
1tsp smoked paprika
1tsp thyme
1/2 tsp rosemary
2 tsp salt
1tsp pepper
2 cloves crushed garlic
1 medium/ 2 small red onions - quartered


1. Mix the herbs, spices, salt and pepper and rub into the chicken.

2. Place the onion, garlic and a few foil balls in the bottom of the cook pot (this keeps the chicken off the bottom and burning!) then put the chicken on top.

3. Cook on high for 1hr then turn to low for at least 6 hours.



Completely forgot to take a picture of the finished, plated up meal, but it was lovely, a bit awkward to get out of the pot - it was so tender, the meat just fell off the legs and wings, so had to cut the off before attempting to take the rest out. Be careful if you are planning on using the juices to make gravy/sauce - may be better to strain it because there were lots of little bones and bit in the juices where it was so tender it just fell off the bone - bones fell off too!

Anyway, seriously, if anyone reads anything on here and tries out something, let me know!!!

Teriyaki Salmon

I've been fancying salmon for absolutely ages! So last night i made teriyaki salmon. Can't honestly remember where the recipe is from, I've been doing it for years! So easy to make and always goes down well!

Teriyaki Salmon

Serves: 2

Cook time: about 30 mins

2 Salmon fillets

1 pepper

1 red onion

juice of one lemon

2 cloves crushed garlic

1/2 tsp ginger

lots of soy sauce

Rice to serve

1. Mix together the lemon juice, soy sauce, garlic and ginger in a bowl. Put the salmon into the mix to marinade.

2. Meanwhile put the rice on to cook and prepare the veg.

3. Fry the salmon until browned on all sides, then remove from the pan and put back into the soy sauce mix. 

4. Cook the veg and serve on top of the rice. Put the salmon and sauce back into the pan to finish cooking, and serve on top of the rice and veg.

Basque Chicken

It's been a while since my last post....I haven't really done anything new worth posting anyway. I have a new cooking toy now: a 3L Pyrex casserole dish. Seriously it's like a super dish: cooks on gas/electric/halogen hobs, oven, microwave, fridge/freezer/dishwasher friendly! 

So I HAD to find a recipe to use it, I found this Basque chicken recipe on Tesco Real Food website. As normal it is edited to suit what I have to hand. It's yummy. Did put a little bit too much chilli flakes in so it was quite spicy! We had it with bread & butter, but I reckon it would definitely work with potato and possibly rice.

Unfortunately though I completely forgot to take pictures until it was already in the pot! Here's how I made it:

Basque Chicken

Serves: 4
Cooking time 1hr 10mins

8 Pieces chicken (thighs/legs are recommended)
3 peppers (1 of each colour preferrably), sliced
2 medium red onions, thickly chopped 
1 leek, thickly chopped
3 tbsp olive oil
150g bacon, chopped
2 large garlic cloves, crushed
1 tbsp tomato puree
270ml chicken stock (I used Bisto squeezy chicken gravy paste diluted)
180ml red wine
1 tsp chilli flakes
Salt & Pepper to season

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Heat 2 tbsp oil in a casserole dish and fry the chicken until browned. Remove the chicken and place to one side.

2. Heat the rest of the oil in the casserole dish, and add the veg and garlic and fry for a few minutes until soft. Add the bacon and fry for another few minutes.

3. Mix the tomato puree, stock, wine and chilli flakes in a jug, and pour over the veg. Bring to the boil and then reduce the heat to simmer for a few minutes.

4. Place the chicken on top of the veg/sauce mix, put the lid on tightly and cook in the oven for about an hour until the chicken is cooked through and the stock/wine has reduced.

Enjoy!

Satay Chicken

Saw this recipe the other week on Jamie Oliver's 30 min meals and knew i needed to try it! Unfortunately I don't yet own that book (soon.....) but i managed to find it online here!

This is seriously yummy! may make it with a bit more sauce next time though!

Serves: 4
Cook time: 30 mins

2tsp Coriander (the recipe says fresh, I used dry)
2 tsp chilli flakes (or a fresh chilli)
3 tbsp crunchy peanut butter
a good glugg of soy sauce
ginger (2cm fresh or 1.5 tsp ground)
2 crushed garlic cloves
2 limes
4 chicken breasts
runny honey for drizzling (I left this out!)
Rice or noodles & stirfried veggies to serve!

1. Zest both limes, and juice one of them. Add the coriander  chilli, peanut butter, soy sauce, ginger and garlic and mix to form a paste (if using fresh coriander, you'll probably need to do it in a blender!)

2. Line the chicken breasts up on a chopping board. Gently and carefully push the skewers through the breasts. Slice between the skewers to give you 4 kebabs. Stick any odd bits on the ends of the skewers. Cover the kebabs with the satay mix, and grill for about 10 mins on each side until  cooked.

3. Serve with rice/ noodles and veggies!

RAINBOW CAKE!!

So me and my friend candi-cloud had a go at making a rainbow cake!! We used a Martha Stewart recipe I found on the internet, and it actually turned out VERY successful!. We only had 2 pans the same size so we did 3 batches of 2 layers!

Rainbow Layer Cake

Makes: one big-ass 6 layer cake!
Prep time: 20 mins
Cook time: 30 mins plus time for decorating

3 cups plain flour
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup unsalted butter
2 1/3 cups sugar (we used caster sugar)
5 large egg whites (we got "posh birds" eggs...they were blue...)
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups milk
gel food colouring (we got dr oetker)

1. Preheat oven to 200C. grease the cake tins with some butter. In a bowl, mix the flour, salt and baking powder and put to one side.

2. Cream together the butter and the sugar. Gradually add the egg whites and vanilla, then mix well. Then add the flour mix and milk to the mixture, alternating like so: flour, milk, flour, milk. Mix well.

3. Divide the batter between 6 bowls, then add the food colouring - as much as you want/need really to get the colour you desire! Then start baking! We baked 3 lots of 2 layers of cake at a time, which took 10 mins each. 

4. Once cooked, leave the layers on a wire rack to cool, then begin building and decorating! We used buttercream frosting between each layer, and got some ready-rolled white icing for the outside with silver balls and sugar polka dots!!

I have to admit I was a bit sceptical as to how it would turn out, because the pink, purple and red layers seemed to look very similar, but once constructed and sliced, it looked amazing! It tasted amazing too! The cake itself was soft and moist, I think the buttercream helped aswell!

More pictures will be up asap, and seriously you SHOULD try doing this!!

Homemade BBQ sauce!

So here's the recipe for the BBQ sauce I made to go with Kievs the other night. Originally planned on making some and keeping it for future use, it was yummy, it all went! Fairly easy to make more though!!


This is a recipe from the burger book!

Prep time: 15 mins
Cook time: 20 mins
Makes about 200ml

1tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed and chopped
1 jalapeño, finely chopped
3tsp tomato purée
1tso mustard
1tbsp red wine vinegar (cider vinegar works aswell)
1tbsp Worcestershire sauce
3tsp sugar
300ml water

1. Heat the oil in a small saucepan. Add the onion, garlic and chilli and gently sauté, stirring frequently for a few minutes. 

2. Remove from the heat. Mix together the tomato purée, mustard, vinegar and Worcestershire sauce and add to the onion mixture, then add 2 tsp sugar and gradually stir in the water.

3. Return to the heat and bring to the boil, stirring frequently. Simmer for 20 mins and add the rest of the sugar.

I found I needed to add some gravy granules to thicken it!

Chicken Kiev

So, I actually remembered to get some chicken out of the freezer on time! So I made chicken kievs, a favourite of the bfs! I don't use a recipe, just kinda make it up as i go depending what's in the cupboard.

Chicken Kiev

Serves 2
Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 30 mins

2 chicken breasts
2 slices white bread
1 egg
Salt and pepper
Chicken seasoning and/or herbs
Garlic mayo
Grated cheese

1. Preheat oven to 200C. Blitz the bread, herbs and seasoning in a food processor.

2. Make a deep cut into the chicken breast, and fill with garlic mayo and cheese then close with a skewer.

3. Whisk the egg in a bowl and season with salt and pepper. Dip the chicken breasts in the egg then roll in the breadcrumbs.

4. Cook the chicken for 30 mins until golden. Serve with chips and homemade bbq sauce (recipe on its way!)

Fairly easy, very yummy!!

Back to burgers!

So, I had some more mince to use and decided to have a flick through the burger book and try a new recipe! So here goes the Vietnamese Banh Mi-style burgers!

Needed pork mince, but only had beef so this is a bit of an experiment, so a little nervous about how these will turn out!

Vietnamese Banh Mi-style Burgers

Prep time: 35 mins
Cook time: 10 mins
Makes 4

450g pork mince
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1tbsp fish sauce
1tsp chinese 5 spice
0.5 tsp sugar
0.25 tsp pepper
Rolls and Mayonnaise to serve

1. Mix together the mince, garlic, fish sauce, spice, sugar and pepper together.

2. Divide into 4 portions and shape into patties and refridgerate for 30 mins.

3. Cook on a griddle pan and serve in a roll with mayonnaise!

Fairly simple really! If you've got it, pop on some sliced cucumber and chilli, unfortunately I don't have any atm!

Verdict: nice! The 5 spice works very well in burgers! Hopefully next time i'll have the garnishes to put on it!

Masterchef?

So i'd been having a flick through the "masterchef everyday" book. The recipes in there do look scrummy, however they don't all seem that "everyday" if i'm honest! There are lots of ballotines of rabbits and saddled of suckling pigs!

Though, looking through i've kinda seen recipes I like the look of and edited them to make them suit me more. 

One thing I do like in this book is the pages towards the back. There are just a few _ +... pages, so if I look at the page "potato +" its got some fairly simple recipes for potato salad and gratin!

So. I had a crack at this blackberry sauce. It's supposed to be served with a "canon of venison"...... I did it with chicken and it was bloody lovely!

Blackberry and red wine sauce

Serves 4
Prep time: 5 mins
Cook time: however long you need!

400ml beef or chicken stock
200ml red wine
1 finely chopped onion
100g blackberries, finely chopped
2tsp redcurrant jelly

1. Put the beef stock, red wine, onion and blackberries into a pan. Bring to the boil, then simmer until reduced by two thirds.

2. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve and into a pan. Stir in the redcurrant jelly and simmer for a few minutes to make a glossy sauce.

Easy! I didn't bother with sieving the sauce, I like the bits of blackberry and onion in the sauce!

Cookbooks ready!

So over the last year or so I've collected quite a few cookbooks, so decided to try using them a bit more!

This is one of my favourite books: 

I love doing home-made burgers, and trying to make them a bit more interesting. This book is full of interesting takes on the standard beef burger! The recipes are all easy to follow with loads of pictures!

Today I decided to have a go at the sautéed mushroom burgers, they turned out to be a success, so I thought I'd share them!If you measure and prep everything before-hand they only take a few minutes to make!

My new favourite chopping toy is the Mezzaluna chopper, it's perfect for finely chopping things, takes very little effort aswell!!

                       

A lot of burger recipes I've seen and used before say to bind the beef with egg yolk or breadcrumbs, I don't really use eggs very often so always ended up wasting them. I've found in these recipes, they say to just pop the burgers in the fridge for 30mins once they've been made. It does work, never had an issue with them falling apart mid-cooking!

I did make a few tweaks to the recipe. Had some bacon left over so wrapped the burgers in them, then topped them off with cheese before serving with a nice dollop of bourbon BBQ sauce!

Burgers with Sautéed mushrooms

Prep time: 10 mins plus 30 mins chilling time

Cook time: 25 mins

Makes: 4

oil

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

4 mushrooms, stalks removed, very finely chopped

400g beef mince

1tsp Dijon mustard

salt and pepper

1 tsp rosemary

4 slices of cheese

4 slices streaky bacon

4 bread rolls

bourbon bbq sauce

1.  Heat the oil in a pan and sauté the garlic and rosemary for a few seconds, then add the mushrooms. Season to taste, reduce the heat and cook for 15 minutes.

2. Put the beef mince into a mixing bowl, season with salt and pepper. Add the sautéed mushrooms and mustard, then mix together and shape into four patties. Wrap the patties in the bacon, and pop in the fridge for 30 mins.

3. Heat some more oil in a pan. Add the patties and cook for 5 mins until browned. Turn the patties over, place the cheese on top, and cook for another 5 mins.

4. Serve in the bread rolls with a dollop of bourbon bbq sauce.