Jamie Oliver’s Chilli con Veggie

 We possibly had our last BBQ of the year yesterday, with 13 family members to celebrate Sprout’s 10th birthday.  So today, with the arrival of rain, we are having a big veggie chilli to compensate for all the meat we consumed yesterday.

The recipe is courtesy of Jamie Oliver’s website, and Kerryann’s Chilli con Veggie.  Do note, the recipe is for 10!  I made halved the ingredients and still have a massive chilli for our family of five.  I also only added 1 teaspoon of smoked paprika and even this might have to much of a poke to it for my generally foodie kids.

Serves 5 (Halved from the original recipe which serves 10)
1 large onion
1 large carrot
1 large stick of celery
1 large clove of garlic
1 small leek
Half a fresh red chilli
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp ground coriander
1 tbsp smoked paprika (I only used 1 level tsp)
½ tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp dried oregano
Nutmeg
2 tbsp tomato purée
125g dried green lentils
125g dried red lentils
1 tin red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 tin tin of black beans, drained and rinsed
1 tin chopped tomatoes
500ml vegetable stock

I chopped all my vegetables in a mini food processor, frying the chopped onion and garlic first in the olive oil, and then adding the chopped carrot, celery and chilli. Fry this for about 5 minutes or until the onion starts to look translucent. Stir in the spices and herbs and then the tomato paste and fry for another minute or so. Add the beans, tomatoes, stock and lentils. Bring to the boil then leave to simmer gently for about 30-45 minutes, stirring from time to time, and adding more liquid if it starts to get too thick. It is ready when the lentils are tender. Season and serve over rice or baked potato with a dollop of soured cream or greek yoghurt.

7pm – Kids have had their tea and wolfed it down. A success.

Twitter: Leesa@sunhillcurry
Instagram: sunhillmakesbakes

Tomato Chutney

A chance discovery of some 600g punnets of tomatoes reduced to 50p a punnet in my local Co-op and I am now the proud owner of some tomato chutney for the first time ever.

My base recipe came from the BBC Good Food website.  It says use ripe tomatoes but I don’t see why you couldn’t use green ones if you have loads.

1kg ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped

750g cooking apples, peeled, cored and chopped

375g light muscovado sugar (I just used white granulated)

250g onions, chopped

250g raisins

1 green pepper, deseeded and chopped (I didn’t use any as I don’t like it in chutney)

2 tsp salt

½ tsp ground ginger

350ml cider vinegar (I used pickling vinegar)

Place all the ingredients into a large heavy based saucepan.  Bring to the boil and boil gently for 45-50 minutes until the vegetables are soft and the chutney has thickened.  Seal into sterilised jars.  This doesn’t say how long to leave it to mature before using but most chutneys are 2-3 months to let the harshness of the vinegar mellow.

I dutifully followed the recipe and peeled and chopped the tomatoes and apples.  Next time, however, I think I’ll just core the apple and place the tomatoes, apples, and onions in the food processor.

Twitter: Leesa@sunhillcurry
Instagram: sunhillmakesbakes

Madhur Jaffrey’s Green Bean Curry

A glut of green beans, even though I didn’t manage to grow any of my own this year, together with the decision to have a curry night this week had me googling bean curry.  But in the end the recipe I chose was from my mother’s 1987 edition of Madhur Jaffrey’s ‘An Invitation to Indian Cookery, first published in 1976.

There were several recipes for beans (Green Beans with Ginger and Green Beans with Mustard) in this book, but I settled on ‘Green Beans with Onion Paste’ as I wanted a curry with more of a sauce.

1 1/2 pounds fresh green beans (I used 500g and this was plenty)
1 medium-sized onion, peeled and coarsely chopped
3 cloves garlic, peeled and coarsely chopped
A piece of fresh ginger, about 1 inch square, coarsely chopped
1 medium-sized canned tomato, coarsely chopped (I used a tin of chopped tomatoes)
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
10 tablespoons vegetable oil (Err, used about 2 tbps)
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon whole black mustard seeds (I couldn’t find any so used onion seeds)
Optional – 1 or 2 whole dried red peppers OR 1/2 hot fresh green chili sliced in half OR 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (I used 1/2 tsp hot chilli flakes)
1 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
2 teaspoons lemon juice (I did not add any, yet the curry had a surprisingly light lemony taste?!)

Slice the beans into 1cm thick slices.

Peel and roughly chop the onion, garlic, ginger, and turmeric and blend together with the tomatoes to a smooth paste.

Here Madhur Jaffrey’s recipe fries the onion paste and beans separately, frying the paste in 6 tbsp of oil for 5 minutes adding 1 tbsp of water at a time if it starts to stick and then adding the ground coriander and cumin.  She then fries the cumin and mustard seeds in the remaining oil until they pop then adds the beans and onion paste from the other pan together with the remaining ingredients to taste.

Having cooked all day, I could not be bothered with two pans and opted for a one pan option, choosing to fry the green beans as above with the cumin and what turned out to be black onion seeds, and then poured over the paste and added the other ingredients.  I also added a can full of recently boiled water to make more sauce.

I simmered the sauce for about 20 minutes.  Madhur Jaffrey’s recipe, however, says 35 minutes, saying “In India we tend to overcook [green beans]…mainly to kill germs and because we love spices.  We like our spices to permeate a vegetable and this cannot happen unless a vegetable is allowed to become fairly tender.  When you finish this recipe, your beans with not look bright green, nor will they be very crisp.  They will be a brownish dark-green, smothered in spices, and utterly delicious.’

Twitter: Leesa@sunhillcurry

Indian Mango Chutney

9 year old Sprout has announced she likes Mango Chutney so I just had to try and make some.  Recipe is off the web but apparently from Madhur Jaffrey.  I didn’t have green mangoes, just overripe juicy ones.  Plus I used pickling vinegar as I forgot to get cider vinegar.  Oh well, here goes nothing…

2 large green mangoes
2 tsp salt
2-4 cloves garlic, peeled
1 inch fresh ginger, chopped
12 floz cider vinegar or distilled white vinegar
14 oz granulated sugar
4 tbsp golden sultanas
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp cayenne pepper

Peel mangoes and dice.  Sprinkle 1tsp salt over and leave for 24 hours.   As my mangoes were very ripe I didn’t do this, but I am now wondering whether sprinkling my very soft mango with salt might help keep what little crunch it had.  If you do salt the mango, drain and pat it dry after 24 hours.

Put garlic and ginger into processor with a little vinegar and blitz into a smooth paste.  Add the rest of the vinegar, sugar, sultanas, turmeric, cayenne, 1 tsp salt, and the ginger and garlic paste and bring to the boil.  Simmer without a lid for 15 minutes or until slightly thick.  Add the chopped mango and simmer for a further 20-30 minutes until the mango looks translucent and the chutney has thickened some more.  Check seasoning and pour into sterilised jars.

Apparently this chutney can be eaten immediately, but most ‘British’ chutneys say leave for 3 months before eating.  Equally the instructions are to store this chutney in the fridge even before opening, but one will join my other varieties in the garage until it’s time comes.

Twitter: Leesa@sunhillcurry

Leftover Roast Pork in a Sweet & Sour Barbecue Sauce

This dish started off with me following the chilli sauce recipe from Ching-He Huang’s Chilli Chicken with Jasmine Rice, but as I added additional ingredients from a Thai Sweet & Sour dish I learnt in Thailand as I prefer the saltier flavours, it began to take on more of a barbecue sauce flavour. The kids have devoured it, including mine and Dad’s portions, so I had better write it down to be able to reproduce it again.

2 big handfuls of roast pork. If you don’t have this much you could always leave the pepper chunky and add a small tin of pineapple chunks to bulk the dish up.
1 tbsp sunflower oil

Sauce
1 tin of tomatoes
3 garlic cloves
2.5cm ginger
1 red pepper
2 tbsp light soy sauce
2 tbsp oyster sauce
2 tbsp sweet chilli sauce
2 tbsp tomato ketchup
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp lemon or lime juice
1 tsp sugar
1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes

Skin the garlic, de-seed and roughtly chop the pepper, roughtly chop the ginger and blend everything in a blender cup.

Fry the chopped pork in the sunflower oil, leaving it to brown as much as you dare. Add the sauce and bring to the boil. Serve with rice.

Vietnamese Beef Pho with Leftover Roast Beef

When a friend, who lived in Vietnam for a while, said she was making a Beef Pho I thought this was something I had to try for myself particulary as I had a little rare beef left from a roast. She texted me a couple of photos of recipes from two recipe books and I muddled through from there.

A lot of ‘proper’ Vietnamese recipes instruct you to roast beef bones and make your own stock. Don’t bother! I came across beef bones by chance (I buy chicken carcasses weekly to make stock for Watercress Soup that I sell to a local farm shop) but it was a long, steamy, and ultimately greasy task. And I think I’ll stick to organic beef stock cubes in future.

Serves 2

200ml wide rice noodles
500ml beef stock
1 star anise
3cm root ginger, shredded
3 bunches bok choy, shredded (I used equivalent amount of sugar snap peas, baby corn, spring onions)
Thinly sliced red onion
Handful thinly sliced raw or rare beef
Half a large bunch of coriander
2 tbsp chopped mint or 1 tbsp dried mint
1/2 tsp hot chilli flakes

Fish sauce and lime or lemon juice to serve

Prepare the vegetables, onion, beef, coriander and mint first. Bring the stock to the boil and add the start anise and ginger and simmer whilst cooking the noodles according to the packet’s instructions.

When the noodles are cooked, drain and divide between two large bowls. Quickly divide all the other ingredients and place vegetables, onion, beef, and herbs into the two bowls and pour over the simmering stock. Add fish sauce, a squeeze of lime or lemon juice, and chilli flakes before eating immediately.

Twitter: Leesa@sunhillcurry