While I was out one evening, my husband bought himself a pre-made meal from the supermarket. It was, or was supposed to be, jambalaya. When I came home he remarked that it was one of the most horrible dinners he'd eaten in ages. I thought I'd cheer him up by making a version at home, using the remaining roast chicken leftovers.
First of all sort out your spices: two teaspoons each of hot chilli powder, garlic powder and paprika. One teaspoon each of salt, oregano, thyme and cayenne. And three teaspoons of turmeric.
Then chop up some peppers, celery, onion, carrots, chilli and lots of garlic. I took a load of peas out of the freezer to defrost and measured out a teacup of rice.
Heat up a pan with some oil and start to fry the onions, celery and half of the garlic. When they are softening, add in a load of chorizo, sliced into half-moon shapes. When that has started to brown, add the rice and spices, stirring them up until they start to smell strongly. Then add a pint of stock, the carrots and the rest of the crushed garlic, and leave to simmer with the lid on for a while, ten or fifteen minutes maybe, depending on what rice you're using. Add more stock if needed.
When the rice is almost cooked, add in the peppers, peas and chilli. Leave for five minutes or so, they don't take that long to cook. Then season with salt, a squeeze of lime juice and a big handful of chopped coriander.
This isn't a purists version of the dish, but it tasted great. I didn't have any prawns but, if I had, I would have put them in towards the end.
Ingredients summary: long grain rice, chicken stock, leftover chicken, chorizo, bell peppers, chilli, onions, garlic, celery, carrots, peas, turmeric, paprika, cayenne, chilli powder, garlic powder, dried oregano, dried thyme, salt, coriander, lime juice.
Fajitas are a great weekend dinner, something I always look forward to and enjoy eating immensely. I love eating with my hands, it's simply a lot more fun than using cutlery.
Up until a few years ago, I really believed I could only make fajitas using those pre-made packs from the supermarket. In fact, I'm frequently surprised at how easily I've been brainwashed into believing I need to buy pre-made products, to create what is usually a pretty simple meal to prepare from scratch.
I used to think that making items which are commonly sold pre-made wasn't possible without an endless supply of time, until I tried it. So that's all I'm saying, give it a go; it's not as hard as the manufacturing companies would have you believe and it always tastes better. It's often cheaper too, and it means you can really control where your ingredients come from. The primary concern of food manufacturers is profit margin, not the ethical or long-term health implications of the raw ingredients they use.
First, put the tortilla dough together, I originally got a recipe for these from Daniel Steven's "Bread" book, but have adjusted it as I prefer the texture and taste of most bread products with some wholemeal flour, plus I find the dough easier to roll out with a little strong bread flour added to the mix.
The dough is just 250g flour, 5g salt and 150ml water, kneaded together for a few minutes and left to rest for half an hour. Seriously, that's all there is to it.
Just for an interesting aside, here are the ingredients in a well known brand of tortillas: Wheat flour, water, vegetable oil, humectant (422), salt, emulsifiers (471, 472[e], 481), raising agents (450, 500, 541), dextrose, preservatives (282, 202), colour (171), food acid (297), flour treatment agent (223), antioxidants (306, 304).
While the dough is resting, put together your fajita seasoning mix: a fresh chopped long, red chilli, a very finely chopped onion, 2 crushed garlic cloves or (at a push) half a tsp of garlic powder, half a vegetable stock cube, 1 tsp paprika, 1 tsp dried oregano, 1 tsp cumin, a big pinch of cayenne pepper, chopped coriander, 1 tsp each of salt and sugar, the juice of a lime, a shot of tequila.
Again, here is a list of the ingredients from a well known brand's seasoning sachet: Soy sauce powder, salt, bell pepper, sugar, herbs and spices, modified corn starch (1422), onion, garlic, food acid (330), oil, anticaking agent (551), vegetable gum (412), natural flavours, antioxidant (320).
Next step, cook your tortillas. Have a clean teatowel standing by and a clean, dry frying pan on the hob. Divide the dough into 8 peices and one by one, flatten, coat in flour and roll out really thinly with a rolling pin. Pop each one in the hot pan for half a minute each side and wrap in the teatowel while you do the next one. The whole process should take you about 10 minutes, but it might take longer the first time you do it, just while you get a feel for the process.
Reuse the same frying pan for the filling, add a bit of oil and fry the onions until almost cooked, then add your protein, the peppers and the seasoning mix. We tend to use quorn* in fajitas, because it's lighter than meat, in a meal that's otherwise quite heavy. For a vegan version, bulk out the filling with some aubergine and courgettes.
Salsa is just tomatoes, chilli, spring or purple onion, coriander, salt, olive oil and lime juice.
Guacamole is just an avocado, chilli, coriander, lime juice, salt and pepper.
Sour cream is just wonderful.
* A note on quorn: although this product once had a bad reputation, due to its use of battery eggs, it has been made with free range eggs since 2004. It's currently believed that the environmental impact of quorn vs its meat equivalents comes out in quorn's favour.
Here is interesting report analysing mycoprotein's (in particular the brand quorn's) alignment with food sustainability. Warning: it was written by an employee of Marlow Foods Ltd, the owners of the Quorn brand, however it is an interesting insight into how they plan to grow their business, including recommendations on how to further improve the sustainability, and lower the environmental impact, of their products. Vegans will be pleased to note the R&D recommendation to find an alternative for egg whites as a binding agent: http://www.mycoprotein.org/assets/timfinniganfood2030.pdf
This is a good one for using up staples that happen to be in the fridge; I usually find myself with a pepper and some potatoes lying around, plus I rarely run out of onions and eggs. This is Spanish-ish because I also added mushrooms, I think the traditional is just peppers, potatoes and egg.
It's a pretty easy brunch to make too, good for a lazy Saturday morning when you can't be bothered to do anything fancy.
Firstly, put the potatoes on to boil; you don't want them fully cooked though, they need to stay a bit firm if possible. Then chop up an onion and a pepper, and in my case mushrooms too, beat some eggs in a bowl with salt, pepper and a little oregano and get a frying pan on to heat up with a little oil.
Fry the onions until they're soft, add in the peppers and mushrooms and cook until they're almost how you like them - still a bit al dente. Take the potatoes off the heat and slice them, then add them to the pan as well.
Finally, pour the egg over and make sure it goes in between all the spaces of the vegetables, then cook until you're pretty sure the base and sides are firm. Then stick the whole thing under the grill until cooked through. Turn upside down onto a place, slice, and serve with a tomato salad. Easy!
Having been a little kitchen crazy recently, I fancied a little break tonight. I made a classic throw-together dinner - few of the ingredients are essential, it can be made with a lot of vegetables that might be in the fridge or freezer and pretty much anything else you have lying around.
I still had the farfalle that I made a while ago, using leftover pasta from the cannelloni, along with some aubergine, leftover from the kibbi. There was also a red pepper, some mushrooms, fresh parsley and oregano, a heel of parmesan, plus I've always got onions and garlic.
I also had a little bit of cream and lemons left from making the lemon tart. With a small pack of thick-cut bacon and some peas from the freezer, this all added up to the makings of a lovely, easy supper.
After chopping the veg, I put the pasta into a pan of boiling, salted water. Then fried the bacon up with the garlic and onions. When pretty much cooked I added in the aubergine, a sprinkling of dried chilli and a few spoonfuls of the pasta water to stop everything sticking. After a few minutes more, the pepper and mushrooms. When everything was cooked, I added the lemon juice and stirred it through before adding the cream, herbs, grated parmesan, salt and pepper.
I drained and sitrred the pasta into the sauce, along with another couple of spoons of the water.
This kind of meal can be made with stock or tomatoes if you don't have any cream and any of the vegetables could be substituted for something else; the base is just pasta, garlic and onion.
The real point of it is that you can make a filling, interesting pasta sauce out of whatever you have in the kitchen; it'll taste better and be better for you than any pre-made jar and takes zero time to do. I think I spent longer writing the four paragraphs in this post than I did cooking it...
The components of Random Pasta Sauce:
1. Liquid: cream, stock, water, tinned tomatoes, passata etc.
2. Alliums: garlic and onions of any kind, even leeks and spring onions can work.
3. Umami: cheese, cured meat, fish, shellfish, tomatoes and mushrooms all give a robust savoury flavour.
4. Vitamins: I usually aim to include at least three different types of veg, to ensure variety in the look, taste and texture.
5. Acidity: lemon juice, vinegar, wine, vodka etc.
6. Seasoning: salt, pepper, fresh or dried herbs, chillies etc.
