Grim up North Heath

Category: Recipes

  • Leek and potato soup

    Leek and potato soup

    Frost in March? Time for shoop!

    Makes enough for four people

    Timings: Prep = 10 min. Cooking = 30 min. Eating = 5 min

    Ingredients

    500 – 600 g potatoes (Baking potatoes or big, floury ones)

    500 -600 g leeks (about the same amount of leeks and potatoes)

    Veggie stock (Knorr stock pot, if possible)

    2 garlic cloves

    I add chilli flakes and cumin (half a teaspoon) to pep it up a bit, oregano and thyme (teaspoon or more) to help make it interesting.

    Additions

    Bacon lardons

    Parmesan

    Method

    You’ll need a big saucepan and a blender.

    Chop the leeks, roughly – only use the white and pale green parts.

    Peel then dice the potatoes and put into water.

    Add a splash of oil to a large saucepan – the soup is made in this pan, so it needs to be big. I use peanut oil, because I’m like that, but vegetable or olive will be fine. Don’t use extra virgin olive oil. though. Fry the leeks over a medium heat until they start to soften and before they go brown. If they go a little brown, don’t worry.

    Add crushed garlic, spices and herbs if using them – fry for about 30 seconds. Add water and stockpot to cover the ingredients. Add the potatoes and more water to cover the spuds.

    Simmer for at least 20 minutes, until the potatoes are softened.

    Use the blender (I bought a stick blender from Wilco years ago and use this. Well worth the £12 it cost.) to mash up the ingredients. You may need to add more water to get the viscosity right – this is a matter of preference.

    Warm the soup through on a low heat. This helps thicken up the soup as starch is released from the potato particles. Meanwhile, fry the bacon lardons until they’re crispy. Grate a good pile of parmesan.

    Serve soup with a sprinkle of bacon and cheese. Serve with bread; Mrs S makes excellent bread that is great with this. But we had none, so I had Warburton’s white instead.

  • Chicken Basmati rice pilaf

    Chicken Basmati rice pilaf

    Based on a recipe I can’t find for an Iranian dish. It falls under the general category of ‘pilaf’, where rice is cooked with other stuff. Chicken is spatchcocked to (a) reduce cooking time and (b) fit in the roasting tin.

    Timings: Prep: 20 minutes. Cooking: 1 hr to 1 hr 15. Eating: about 10 minutes.

    Ingredients

    Medium roasting chicken (1.8 kg ish)

    250 g basmati rice

    500 ml chicken or veg stock (I used Knorr stock pots)

    One onion

    6 cherry tomatoes or a couple of normal tomatoes

    One carrot (diced) and a handful of raisins

    A teaspoon each of chilli flakes, cumin, oregano, and black pepper (to be more authentically Iranian, sumac should be used. But I didn’t have any. Sue me).

    Method

    Set oven to 180 C (fan). Will need at least one hour, up to 1 hr 15 min.

    Chop the onion into thick slices and scatter on the bottom of a lined roasting dish. Cut the tomatoes and add to the onions.

    Spatchcock the chicken (pictures below). I marinated the chicken overnight – rub the skin with olive oil and salt, put into a big plastic bag and put in the fridge. I try and do this when I do a roast, it tenderises the meat.

    Add the chicken to the roasting tin.

    Raw spatchcocked chicken placed in a roasting dish with sliced onions, cherry tomatoes, and diced carrots on a bed of foil.
    Chicken ready for the rice and stock.

    Add the rice, diced carrots and raisins. Pour over the stock.

    Cover with baking parchment, then foil to seal in the steam as it cooks.

    Bye, bye birdie.

    I used a thermometer to check that the chicken was cooked. After an hour it was nearly done (not yet at 74 C) , but the rice looked a bit dry on top so I added 100 ml water. I gave it another 10 minutes and it was done.

    Finished dish, roast chicken in colourful rice.
    Dinner’s ready!

    There was a nice contrast in textures between the rice at the top and the rice at the bottom, so there was crunch and softness.

    I’d go heavier on the spices next time. Maybe buy sumac, or look into the traditional Turkish method.

    Also some recipes call for grilling the dish before serving to brown the chicken and give extra burned rice. Maybe next time.

    Spatchcocking a chicken

    This is removing the spine of the bird and pressing it flat so it cooks quicker.

    Another Taskmaster reference. Hugh Dennis spatchcocked a camel, which I won’t be doing.

    I bought bone scissors some time ago because doing this without the proper tools hurts and can ruin a normal pair of scissors.

    “You Tansung?” “You asking?” “I’m asking.” “Then I’m Tansung”. A reference for the youth, there.

    I use these to cut the legs off roasted chicken, so they are used at least once a month. And they come apart and are dishwasher safe.

    I chopped off the parson’s nose then cut down one side of the spine. The skin is more difficult to cut properly with these scissors. I removed the spine fully.

    The world’s most cowardly animal – a spineless chicken!

    I wiped the inside with kitchen towel to get rid of rogue bits from inside. Turn it over and press down to flatten. The wishbone needs to be broken so the bird will lie flat.

    Spatchcocking reduces cooking time by about half.

  • Buckwheat pancakes

    Buckwheat pancakes

    A favourite when we go to France. And it’s pancake day!

    Ingredients (pancakes)

    80g buckwheat flour

    1 egg

    250 ml milk

    pinch of salt

    Mix flour, egg and salt in a bowl. Once mixed, leave to stand for at least 30 minutes. Overnight in a fridge is supposed to be better.

    When it’s time, put a blob of butter in a frying pan. Once it’s bubbling add enough batter to cover the pan and fry until the top is almost solid. Then flip and continue to fry until the bottom is solid.

    We had buckwheat flour left over from youngest daughter’s Food Tech last month. And an egg! Currently a luxury in the USA.
    Quite a thick batter (not that you can tell). If I was working I’d do some rheology and a design of experiments on this and determine the ideal ratio of flour, egg and milk. But I’m not working, which is why I’m doing this nonsense.

    In the end, they were OK. We had them with baked salmon (from frozen – salt, chili flakes and frozen onions, bake 30 minutes at 180 C) and corn on the cob (butter and salt, wrap in foil, bake with the salmon).